My Life As a Whale - Softcover

``Betsy,'' says the loopy hero of Sheldon's latest wacko farce, ``how many times do I have to tell you? I do not have a Peter Pan complex.'' Oh, but Michael Householder--insistently average though the author makes him out to be--does have serious problems, some of them caused by his own selfish fussiness (he's the kind of guy who bakes his own crackers). Other troubles stem from the simple fact that, in his own words, ``As of the summer of 1986, some stockbroker in the Village and I were the only two fully operational, healthy, solvent, heterosexual males within...a seventy-mile radius of New York City...who were not married, about to be married, or as good as married.'' Thus, after his live-in girlfriend splits (starved for both commitment and affection, leaving her parrot, Gracie, behind), Mikey is pursued relentlessly, it seems, by every woman in town. His life turns into a living hell. So, the clever boy creates himself a wife, putting a woman's voice on the answering machine, taking out the trash in a lady's robe, teaching Gracie appropriately wively one-liners, and even getting his best buddy to attend a party with him in drag. This quells the female interest but causes a raft of other problems- -among them the fact that when he decides to ``separate'' from the little woman, he's suspected of being a serial killer.... Of course, things all work out in the end, and the ridiculous plot even takes on a madcap momentum of its own. Still, Mike is never a plausible, authentic character and the comic cogitations are overwritten. Not to worry, though. Hollywood snapped this up, which makes sense--it'll probably make a snappy, Tootsie-ish movie. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

An unattached, straight 34-year-old man--a rare commodity in '90s Manhattan--is the protagonist of Sheldon's ( Dreams of an Average Man ) entertaining satire. After a widely publicized magazine article warns women that their chances of marrying are slim after age 30, Michael Householder, a literary agent labeled gynophobic by a friend, begins to feel like a member of an endangered species--preyed upon but unprotected. To defend himself, he "invents" a wife, even cross-dressing so that neighbors see her entering his apartment. But soon after Michael announces their separation, a psychotic murderer known as the Gourmet Killer (he arranges dismembered body parts as cuisine) leaves a filleted foot in Michael's apartment building. Michael, known to be handy in the kitchen, is arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife. Will he beat the rap? Will he give up his misogynistic ways and find true love? Sheldon's book is less a thriller than a wry and subtle commentary on contemporary mores reminiscent of George Stade's Confessions of a Ladykiller. Like Stade's hero, Michael is a Poe-inspired creation who, protesting his ordinariness and balance, betrays just how out of balance he truly is. A well-crafted, acerbic tale that captures the foibles of the 30-something, post-yuppie generation. Film rights sold to Interscope.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.