Books: My Ex-Life By Stephen McCauley (2018)

"David Hedges’s life is coming apart at the seams. His job helping San Francisco rich kids get into the colleges of their (parents’) choice is exasperating; his younger boyfriend has left him; and the beloved carriage house he rents is being sold. His solace is a Thai takeout joint that delivers 24/7. The last person he expects to hear from is Julie Fiske. It’s been decades since they’ve spoken, and he’s relieved to hear she’s recovered from her brief, misguided first marriage. To him. Julie definitely doesn’t have a problem with marijuana (she’s given it up completely, so it doesn’t matter if she gets stoned almost daily) and the Airbnb she’s running out of her seaside house north of Boston is neither shabby nor illegal. And she has two whole months to come up with the money to buy said house from her second husband before their divorce is finalized. She’d just like David’s help organizing college plans for her 17-year-old daughter. That would be Mandy. To quote Barry Manilow, Oh Mandy. While she knows she’s smarter than most of the kids in her school, she can’t figure out why she’s making so many incredibly dumb and increasingly dangerous choices. When David flies east, they find themselves living under the same roof (one David needs to repair). David and Julie pick up exactly where they left off thirty years ago―they’re still best friends who can finish each other’s sentences. But there’s one broken bit between them that no amount of home renovations will fix."

Stephen McCauley has always excelled at creating wonderful relationships between gay men and straight women in his works, which includes his first and most well known novel, 1987’s The Object of My Affection (a good book that was turned into so-so movie). In his seventh novel (and the first one since 2010’s Insignificant Others), My Ex-Life delves into David and Julie’s long and sometimes difficult friendship. And much like Jonathan Tropper or Tom Perrotta or Michael Chabon (and even Richard Russo), McCauley is fairly brilliant telling modern social commentary comedies that will appeal to anyone, gay or straight, male or female, young or old. The idea is that while family is important, what is more important is love and affection.

So while he books themes of what lies and truths we tell each other to keep us sane and happy are fairly universal, the book never falls into parody that some of these tales (what I call Men Lit) do. It’s a story of deep friendship and love that time can never destroy, and how even if we’ve thought too much water had flowed under too many bridges, the secrets we needed to tell but somehow (and maybe hoped) would never come to life, can be told and will (cliché here) really set us free.

So My Ex-Life is often snappy, funny, sad, and truthful. What life seems to truly be.