Synopsis

A daring comic novel, set on the Columbia University campus, about love, literature, sex and murder.

Publishers Weekly

Stade's love of language and literary convention are apparent from the first sentence of his new novel (after Sex and Violence) when, in the manner of a Victorian narrator, he welcomes the reader with, "We might as well begin with Charles Craig Lockhart's walk to work." Charles (roundly known as Chuck), an English professor at Columbia University as is Stade tosses off allusions, lit crit and bits of verse as casually as a contemporary action hero mouths an expletive. The book's most entertaining strain is the frisson between this elegant language and the characters' crass thoughts and behaviors. Such authorial devotion is not, however, extended to the plot, which, if not hackneyed, is at least familiar. Middle-aged Charlie tumbles into an affair with 30-year-old student poetess Claire McCoy, she of the curly red hair and extreme self-confidence. It soon becomes apparent to the pair that the only things standing in the way of their eternal happiness are their spouses, whom the lovers resolve to murder. Stocked with missed chances, recriminations and snafus, Stade's flights of literary fancy are exhilarating, but his characters are pawns. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Biography

George Stade is the author of three novels: Confessions of a Lady-Killer, Sex and Violence: A Love Story, Love is War. He has edited numerous scholarly books, and is Consulting Editorial Director of Barnes and Noble Classics and Editor-in-Chief of Scribner's British Writers Series and the fourteen-volume European Writers Series. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.