Love MeLove Me
Title rated 3.25 out of 5 stars, based on 9 ratings(9 ratings)
Book, 2003
Current format, Book, 2003, , Available .Book, 2003
Current format, Book, 2003, , Available . Offered in 0 more formatsLeaving his wife to pursue an idealized life as a writer, Larry Wyler finds his early successes quickly deteriorating and returns home to write for an advice column, through which he learns unexpected life lessons.
Leaving his wife to pursue an idealized life as a writer, Larry Wyler finds his early successes quickly deteriorating and returns home to write for an advice column, through which he learns unexpected life lessons. 250,000 first printing.
The enterprising Larry Wyler, settled in St. Paul with his beloved Iris, an earnest Democrat out to save the world, sits upstairs and writes stories and lands one in The New Yorker, the Canaanland of all English majors. While Iris devotes herself to rescuing demented geezers and chemically dependent single moms, he sets his sights on literary prominence.
When his first novel, Spacious Skies, becomes a hit, he leaves Iris behind and buys a Manhattan apartment with a fabulous terrace and moves into an office at The New Yorker among Salinger, Trillin, Updike, Powers - writers he admires - and the great editor William Shawn.
Wyler and Shawn become pals, sailing around New York Harbor on the Shawnee, drinking man-size martinis, but Wyler's followup novel, Amber Waves of Grain, bombs badly. ("Why did I write so much about soybeans in the first chapter?" he wonders.) And then comes a long spell of writer's block. Wyler despairs until out of nowhere comes an invitation to write a newspaper advice column, "Ask Mr. Blue" - a low rung on the literary ladder, but writing commonsense advice to the lonely and the frustrated provides a much-needed distraction and initiates Larry's own long recovery. As he doles out wisdom to Exasperated, whose wife gives up her judgeship for figure skating, and Nice Lady, who is abusive to the obese, and Secular Humanist, who suddenly notices his girlfriend is Amish, Wyler slowly, painfully finds a measure of clarity for his own life. He confronts the evil New Yorker publisher Tony Crossandotti and sets out to win back his wife's affections.
When Larry Wyler heads east from Minnesota to New York in pursuit of the celebrated life of the writers he admires and the three-martini lunch, he leaves behind Iris, the college sweetheart he married. When he abandons the rural flats of St. Paul for the fabled high-rise housing William Shawn and his famous magazine, Wyler stumbles into meteoric success as a writer and a womanizer. However, he's soon brought low by an even quicker series of failures on both fronts. Iris catches Wyler in flagrante, living the New York high life, and when The New Yorker gives him the boot the jig is up. A chastened man, Wyler returns to Minnesota, where the only writing job he can get is as an advice columnist for the lovelorn. Writing under the pen name "Mr. Blue," Wyler doles out wry, knowing, and practical advice about seduction and mating to the heartbroken and the lonely. And only slowly, painfully, does Wyler figure out for himself how, after losing love, you can eventually get it back.
From one of America's most beloved writers comes a hilarious and heartfelt novel about ambition, success, and failure as well as the virtues of real love and a steady writing job.
Leaving his wife to pursue an idealized life as a writer, Larry Wyler finds his early successes quickly deteriorating and returns home to write for an advice column, through which he learns unexpected life lessons. 250,000 first printing.
The enterprising Larry Wyler, settled in St. Paul with his beloved Iris, an earnest Democrat out to save the world, sits upstairs and writes stories and lands one in The New Yorker, the Canaanland of all English majors. While Iris devotes herself to rescuing demented geezers and chemically dependent single moms, he sets his sights on literary prominence.
When his first novel, Spacious Skies, becomes a hit, he leaves Iris behind and buys a Manhattan apartment with a fabulous terrace and moves into an office at The New Yorker among Salinger, Trillin, Updike, Powers - writers he admires - and the great editor William Shawn.
Wyler and Shawn become pals, sailing around New York Harbor on the Shawnee, drinking man-size martinis, but Wyler's followup novel, Amber Waves of Grain, bombs badly. ("Why did I write so much about soybeans in the first chapter?" he wonders.) And then comes a long spell of writer's block. Wyler despairs until out of nowhere comes an invitation to write a newspaper advice column, "Ask Mr. Blue" - a low rung on the literary ladder, but writing commonsense advice to the lonely and the frustrated provides a much-needed distraction and initiates Larry's own long recovery. As he doles out wisdom to Exasperated, whose wife gives up her judgeship for figure skating, and Nice Lady, who is abusive to the obese, and Secular Humanist, who suddenly notices his girlfriend is Amish, Wyler slowly, painfully finds a measure of clarity for his own life. He confronts the evil New Yorker publisher Tony Crossandotti and sets out to win back his wife's affections.
When Larry Wyler heads east from Minnesota to New York in pursuit of the celebrated life of the writers he admires and the three-martini lunch, he leaves behind Iris, the college sweetheart he married. When he abandons the rural flats of St. Paul for the fabled high-rise housing William Shawn and his famous magazine, Wyler stumbles into meteoric success as a writer and a womanizer. However, he's soon brought low by an even quicker series of failures on both fronts. Iris catches Wyler in flagrante, living the New York high life, and when The New Yorker gives him the boot the jig is up. A chastened man, Wyler returns to Minnesota, where the only writing job he can get is as an advice columnist for the lovelorn. Writing under the pen name "Mr. Blue," Wyler doles out wry, knowing, and practical advice about seduction and mating to the heartbroken and the lonely. And only slowly, painfully, does Wyler figure out for himself how, after losing love, you can eventually get it back.
From one of America's most beloved writers comes a hilarious and heartfelt novel about ambition, success, and failure as well as the virtues of real love and a steady writing job.
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