Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

 

After reading the latest novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy, readers will swear the author had to have worked at “Saturday Night Live” as she nails the making of an episode in her narrative coming out in April.

Seemingly divided into thirds, the first part of the book is about how “The Night Owls” AKA “TNO” mimics “SNL”. The amount of information regarding how one show with one host is created in April of 2018 nearly makes this portion of the book lean toward tedious. On the other hand, it segues into how writer Sally Milz met–and lost–rock star Noah Brewster.

Emails between Noah and Sally begin the second part as both characters are isolated like everyone else in the pandemic. As they banter back and forth feeling each other out and working through the kinks in their relationship, they agree to a plan in which Sally travels from her family home in Missouri to Noah’s mansion in the Topanga Canyon of California.

The third and concluding part of the book deals with Sally’s firm belief that celebrity women can find meaningful relationships with regular guys, while that would never happen in reverse with a male personality falling for a regular gal like Sally. She and Noah test the rule as their relationship away from “TNO” and everyone else as they create their own pandemic pod. How could they have a happy ending when Noah is famous and good looking and she’s just Sally the writer for “TNO”?

While is seems writer Sittenfeld was shadowing the writing team at “SNL,” she admits only to immersing herself in memoirs by “SNL” comics, devouring the book Live From New York  edited by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, and  visiting  a “SNL” dress rehearsal. In addition, after hours of watching 5-years’ worth of the program with her family, she developed Sally’s theory of how often female guest stars and non-celeb males from the “SNL” staff  end up dating and in some cases marrying yet she did not observe the same with a famous man and a woman writer.

Curtis Sittenfeld has always been able to flesh out complex women on the pages of her novels. She is the New York Times bestselling author of  Prep, Eligible, American Wife, and Sisterland, as well as the collection You Think It, I'll Say It. Her books have been translated into thirty languages. She lives with her family in Minneapolis.

The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore

In The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore coming out in April, Sloane Parker is a librarian in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. She decides she will engage  crotchety old Arthur McLachlan when he makes his daily visits to the library. His personality is oft putting, he scares most of the staff at the library, and he does not mind hurling unpleasant comments to Sloane or anyone else. After months of this daily taunting and teasing of Sloane, Arthur fails to visit the library.

Day after day, Arthur is a no-show, and Sloane’s anxiety increases until she decides to find Arthur at home--against the library’s rules—to learn what has happened to the old book lover. Turns out, Arthur has had some kind of health episode and is bedridden. Sloane is relieved to track him down, and in his own way, Arthur is actually pleased to see her.

Arthur is antagonized by how his body has failed him, and he shuns everybody’s help until Sloane worms her way into his life full time as she has been fired from the library for violating the rules in seeking out a patron’s home. Arthur and Sloane pretend she is just there every day to catalog his personal collection of books, which allows him to maintain his dignity while he is on the mend.

Through the guise of starting a bedside  book club, Sloane brings others into lonely Arthur’s life, including his long-lost grandson Greg, his neighbor Maisey, fellow librarian Mateo, and a former colleague of Arthur’s, Nigel. This motley crew learns much about each other through the very books they study: The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro), The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan), and Anne of Green Gables, (L.M. Montgomery).

This author writes under three pen names: Lucy Gilmore pens uplifting comedies, Tamara Berry composes cozy mysteries, and Tamara Morgan is a romance writer. She lives in Spokane, Washington, with her family.