The Boyfriend School

Gretchen Griner is an underpaid, underappreciated photographer for the Austin (that’s Texas) Grackle, part-time lover of Peter Overton Treadwell III (known as “Trout”), and major consumer of Cup O’ Soup. That is, until she meets Lizzie Potts—otherwise known as Viveca Lamoureaux, romance writer extraordinaire. Lizzie has a plan for Gretchen’s life—and it includes Lizzie’s brother Gus. But Gretchen has her own plan, and it does not feature a “wispy goon” named Gus. Of course, fate also has a plan for Gretchen, and it doesn’t care what Gretchen wants. So Lizzie will give Gretchen Gus, Gus will give Gretchen the man of her dreams, and among this oddball cast of marvelous misfits, someone just may discover the secret to true romance.

Publishers Weekly

Gretchen Griner, overworked photographer for the Austin Grackle , isn't thrilled when her deadbeat editor and tomcatting boyfriend Trout sends her to Dallas to shoot the annual romance writers' ``Luvboree.'' But she returns to Austin fired up to write a ``bodice-ripper'' after meeting Lizzie, a romance queen who speaks in an irritating medieval patois, and Juanita, who touts her books as ``wet dreams for dry dames.'' Though Lizzie offers her gentle brother, ``the Wisp,'' as an antidote to the no-good Trout, Gretchen thrusts him aside in order to catch a hood on a motorcycle. Bird lets loose with the manic sense of humor demonstrated in her first novel, Alamo House . Here the hilarity is even gamier and more strained. While Gretchen racks up points for charm when evading her landlord, trading smart-aleck repartee and cruising Austin's streets in a lumbering Delta '88, the novel is heavy-handed and somewhat sophomoric. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections. (Mar.)

Sarah Bird lives with her family in Austin, Texas, where she performs her own material regularly at the Hyde Park Theatre. She is the author of six previous novels, including The Flamenco Academy and The Yokota Officers Club.