Synopsis
“Adams is that rare writer who sends out every laugh with a sting in its tail. Most novels fade from the memory. This one sticks.”—Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Inside their picture-perfect homes, the residents of this quiet California suburb are not at all what they seem.
Lance is a former weatherman, now a buff yogi, stay-athome dad, and manager of his daughter’s Girl Scout troop’s cookie distribution. Belle is his precocious and quick-witted daughter. Darlene is a classic Type A work-a-holic, she has little time or patience for the needs of her husband and daughter
And just down the street are Alec and Wren. Alec, a womanizing businessman, is also the financial backer—and sometimes more—behind Darlene’s burgeoning empire. Meanwhile, Wren is a doting mother and talented yogi, ready to lay down the mat for a quick session with Lance.
As looming Santa Ana winds threaten to turn brushfires into catastrophe; Playdate proves that relationships are complicated and the bonds between families, spouses and children are never quite what they seem. What happens next door, beyond the hedges, in the romper room and executive office—it’s all as combustible as a quick brushfire on a windy day.
Publishers Weekly
Pity the 21st-century househusband. Although former weatherman Lance Ramsay enjoys staying at home in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, his 10-year-old daughter Belle's classmates consider him a loser, and his wife, Darlene, is so busy opening a new "Darlene's Diner," the franchise she started eight years ago in Barstow, Calif., that lovemaking has become perfunctory. Lance longs for another child and wishes his wife were more sensitive to Belle, but he finds plenty of distractions: having lots of tantric sex with Wren, the wife of Darlene's business partner, and dodging the amorous overtures of Wren's babysitter. Wren's sister, Robin, starts writing a book about househusbands, which gives a macho neighbor a chance to express his contempt for housebound men. Over the course of a few busy days leading up to the new diner's opening, in which everyone is sleeping with everyone, a brush fire threatens the region, which leads to the inevitable question: will the Ramsays' marriage go up in flames? US Weekly film critic Adams wittily skewers his shallow characters, resulting in a novel that's equal parts cleverness and tedium. (Jan.)