Books: You Only Call When Your're In Trouble by Stephen McCauley (2023)

After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay. Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father. Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call.

As I wrote five years ago when I read McCauley’s My Ex-Life, he has always excelled at creating wonderful relationships between gay men and straight women, along with the dysfunctional families that come with it. Part of the theme of this a book appears to be what we owe our family. Dorothy is complete mess, as is her daughter Cecily. Tom –who could probably benefit from therapy- is the one constant; he has helped them and solved most of their problems. While the book is not without it’s humor, there is a slight suffocation to the story and characters –maybe this goes on in the upper crust, upper middle class families where kids call their mother and uncle by name. So that created a certain heaviness I was not expecting, based on McCauley’s previous work.

Tom, surprisingly, comes off as unlikable at times and there are pacing issues, but I found the book worth reading (perhaps in paperback than hardcover). Also, Cecily’s relationship with her Chicago lover Sontash seems oddly unnecessary (or could've been heavily condensed). The whole premise of Sontash’s mother using Cecily’s Title IX issue that drove her from Deerpath (possibly Roosevelt University?) to the East coast is steeped in racist tropes and the old caste system where appearances must be paramount and scandal buried or tossed away.

Not as enjoyable as his previous work, but I still liked it.

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.