Relationships and marriages fraught with flaws and imperfections are consistent hallmarks of the always thought-provoking work of Marian Thurm (Today Is Not Your Day). Over three decades, she's consistently published lively fiction that leans toward the absurdities of life. She sets her sights on ordinary, however eccentric, people whose lives are complicated by fate, poor choices and a search for happiness and fulfillment.
Her seventh novel, The Blackmailer's Guide to Love, is set in 1978, in a world where "Google and Wikipedia are decades away." A trio of young, sophisticated, upwardly mobile New Yorkers are embarking on their lives in post-Nixon Manhattan. "Suburban-bred innocent," Ivy League alumna and literary writer wannabe Mel Fleischer, 25, lands an entry-level job at a prestigious--unnamed in the narrative--Madison Avenue magazine. Her boss, Austin Bloch, is a middle-aged, esteemed editor who works with some of the finest writers. However, that doesn't make his moral character exemplary. He is moody and often condescending to Mel, who, when she's not making copies and combing through the slush pile, is put in the precarious position of covering for and hiding Austin's dalliances from his wife, as he keeps "a stable of a half-dozen women to choose from."
This is all new to Mel, who has "no idea how to navigate a universe where husbands and wives betray each other or snort coke with straws off glass tables while their toddlers are asleep in beds down the hall." She shares her experiences with Charlie, her caring and supportive husband, a Manhattan psychotherapist. He is faced with his own dilemma in counseling Julia Meyerson, a young, divorced Ph.D. student who, unable to secure a teaching position, cares for an aging and infirm childless couple. Around the same time that Mel has one of her short stories accepted for publication by the New Yorker, doctor-patient lines start to blur for Charlie and Julia. Each character, on the brink of personal change, faces a crossroads. And a complicated love triangle develops that tests the wisdom and truth of each character as she/he undergoes personally dramatic twists and turns that ultimately ensnare the three lives.
Clever, surprising plots developments abound, and exquisitely drawn characters have their perceptions radically changed when they are forced to confront temptations, conflicts and unexpected challenges. Thurm's literary authority is on full display in this deeply engrossing and dramatically juicy novel. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines
Shelf Talker: A richly drawn, juicy love triangle ensnares the lives of three young, upwardly mobile sophisticates in post-Nixon Manhattan.