Leading Man
-
-
3.5 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $6.99
-
- $6.99
Publisher Description
In the tradition of David Nicholls and Nick Hornby comes a hilarious, bittersweet, heartwarming debut novel about love of all kinds: first, unrequited, delusional, obsessive, and, ultimately, the kind that lasts.
At 26, Maxwell Lerner thinks he has his whole life figured out. He's got the girl--his high-school sweetheart Samantha. He's got the job--low-level reporter for a prestigious national magazine. He even lives with aforementioned girl in a walk-up studio apartment in the West Village. Life is sweet. Until his aspiring actress girlfriend leaves him for his childhood hero, Johnny Mars, who, as action adventurer "Jack Montana," features in some of Max's favorite movies. Getting dumped for one of his idols sets Max off on a dual mission: to get inside the glamorous world Samantha left him for, and to win her back. But when Samantha's perfect life takes an unexpected turn, Max gets more of an education, in life and in love, than he bargained for.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this shallow first novel about celebrity culture, Maxwell Lerner is a newly minted entertainment journalist for KNOW magazine. He lives with his childhood sweetheart, Samantha Kotter, an actress. But one day in 1994, Max reads in the newspaper that Sam, working at the Concord Theatre Festival, has fallen in love with her leading man, Johnny Mars, an '80s action hero Max worshipped as a boy, sending Max into a tailspin. He tries to date, but doesn't find anyone to take the place of Sam, who insists that she and Max become "pals." As the '90s become the aughts, Max nurses Sam through all sorts of crises in her marriage to Mars and makes a name for himself in the celebrity-interview game. But will Max end up with a true Hollywood ending? Svetkey's tale is half romance and half roman clef (he spent years as a celebrity interviewer for Entertainment Weekly), and reading about the celebrity scene of yesteryear is as rewarding as an old issue of EW. Max, sadly, is a little too callow to make us care whether he finds happiness, with or without his beloved Sam.
