The Man Of The House | Granta

  • Published: 03/07/2006
  • ISBN: 9781862079007
  • 130x20mm
  • 288 pages

The Man Of The House

Stephen McCauley

Thirty-five-year-old Clyde Carmichael spends too much time at things that make him miserable: teaching at a posh but flaky adult learning centre; devouring forgettable celebrity biographies; and obsessing about his ex-lover, Gordon. Clyde’s other chief pursuit is dodging his family – his maddeningly insecure sister and his irascible father, who may or may not be at death’s door. In fact, Clyde’s in danger of becoming as aimless as Marcus, his handsome (and unswervingly straight) roommate, who has spent ten years on one dissertation and far too many fizzled relationships. Enter Louise Morris: Clyde’s old friend and Marcus’s one-time lover is a restless writer and single mother, who shows up with her son, Ben, and a neurotic dog in tow. The looming question of Ben’s paternity nudges Clyde back into the orbit of his own father and propels our hero into the kind of bittersweet emotional terrain that McCauley has made entirely his own.

McCauley's particular skill lies in his grasp of the bonds that link straights and gays in the maze of life's daily dealings

Time

The secret love child of Edith Wharton and Woody Allen

New York Times

Like all great masters of comedy, McCauley has a deadly serious eye on the human predicament. For my money, his prose is some of the best around - graceful and sturdy and blessedly free from pretension

Armistead Maupin

The Author

Stephen McCauley, described by the New York Times as ‘the secret love child of Edith Wharton and Woody Allen’, is the author of The Object of My Affection, which was made into a film starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, True Enough, The Easy Way Out, The Man of the House and Alternatives to Sex, all published by Granta Books. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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