Sideways
Rex PickettBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Sideways is the story of two friends-Miles and Jack-going away together for the last time to steep themselves in everything that makes it good to be young and single: pinot, putting, and prowling bars. In the week before Jack plans to marry, the pair heads out from Los Angeles to the Santa Ynez wine country. For Jack, the tasting tour is Seven Days to D-Day, his final stretch of freedom. For Miles—who has divorced his wife, is facing an uncertain career and has lost his passion for living-the trip is a weeklong opportunity to evaluate his past, his future and himself.
A raucous and surprising novel filled with wonderful details about wine, Sideways is also a thought-provoking and funny book about men, women, and human relationships.
Synopsis
A road novel of two friends cutting a swath through California's wine country and the basis of award-winning director Alexander Payne's (Saving Ruth, Election, About Schmidt) next movie.
Publishers Weekly
Brick does an admirable job of bringing to life the characters of Miles and Jack as they head off for a weeklong junket in California wine country in the face of impending marriage, professional duress and a lot of bottled-up emotions. Given the strong performances of Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church in one of last year's most popular films-and that the audio is packaged to tie in with the movie-it makes sense that Brick's portrayals echo those of the two actors. From Miles's quivering tone of despair to Jack's husky, confident exhortations (and even Miles's famously delivered opinion on the prospect of drinking merlot), there are obvious similarities in approach. But Brick deftly builds on that approach and extends it to the further and different adventures the two men endure in Pickett's novel, including a doomed late-night boar hunt with a feckless and potentially dangerous local. He also nicely handles the budding romance between Miles and a lovely, intelligent waitress named Maya, along with the explosive denouement of Jack's misguided fling with a wine pourer named Tara. It makes for a lively reading of this hearty, well-balanced look at the plight of middle age. Based on the Griffin paperback (Reviews, May 17, 2004). (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"A fresh take... credit screenwriter Pickett for coming up with a debut that goes some distance... Skillful work about a friendship between two ultimately likeable guys."- Kirkus Reviews
"[A] lively debut... Pickett takes his readers on a jolly ride."
- Publishers Weekly
"A buddy novel in the cinematic vein of Swingers... Pickett plays the sex-and-the-single man angle for all its worth here, nodding occasionally at such larger themes as friendship and romance. Call it Nick Hornby lite."
- Booklist