Love Slave
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A literary novel set in 1995 New York, Love Slave follows Sybil Weatherfield—her generation’s Dorothy Parker—and her strange friends as they defy chick-lit expectations (though they’re unaware that they’re doing so). Sybil is an office temp by day and a columnist by night for New York Shock, a chatty rag (her column is called “Abscess,” which is a wound that never heals). Her friends include a paper-pusher for a human rights organization, and the lead singer of a local rock band called Glass Half Empty. Full of cultural detail, mid-nineties observations, and early adulthood anxieties, it’s ultimately an ironic look at what it means to be a love slave.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spiegel's debut novel, after The Freak Chronicles, a short story collection, chronicles the romantic misadventures of Sybil Weatherfield, author of "a neurotic little" newspaper column entitled "Abscess," wherein she "chronicles the manifestations of cerebral overload." Set in an innocuously seedy version of 1995 Manhattan replete with Walkmans, answering machines, and O.J. Simpson hysteria Spiegel's story is populated by characters whose highest aspiration is to be able to say, "I'm with the band." When Sybil befriends Rob, the lead singer of Glass Half Empty, she feel she's arrived. Despite her boring financial analyst boyfriend, she becomes infatuated with Rob and devotes her columns to deconstructing her relationships and bemoaning her condition bulimic, fearful that she isn't hip enough, and unhappy as an office temp (which job, she says, is "the metaphor for my life"). Even more than the trappings of 90s NYC, Spiegel's novel evokes the psychic angst of Manhattanites presumptuous enough to describe themselves as struggling "artistes," yet entitled enough to melt down when they can't order breakfast in a diner after 11am. Although the storyline is thin, the writing is fresh and witty, and Sybil is a sympathetic character worthy of rooting for as she searches for something to believe in.
Customer Reviews
New York State of Mind
It's the mid-nineties and Sybil Wetherfield is a thirty year old New Yorker trying to uncover who she really is, what she wants out of life, what she wants out of love.
Sybil is witty, sarcastic, a cynic. She's getting older, stuck in a temporary state of unrest. She considers herself an artist, writing a column for a weekly newspaper, but temping to make ends meet. Her one good friend is a girl she met temping who longs to get out of New York. She's in a mediocre relationship with what should be the perfect guy for her.
Enter Rob Shachtley, the lead singer of Glass Half Empty. Handsome, retro and chic, Rob is haunted by his young wife's death, still mourning her after 7 years. Sybil and Rob strike up a friendship that has her questioning what she wants for her future.
Sybil is self involved and trying to be something she's not. She's unwittingly complicated and so unsure of each decision she makes. The whole time I was reading I was wishing I could take her by the shoulders and shake her.
Rob is such a wonderfully written character. He's complex and sensitive, a good guy, and you can instantly understand the need to be with the band.
The author does a great job of putting you in that New York state of mind. Great descriptions and locales. You want to instantly be with Sybil, on the street, eating huge pancakes or sitting in a bar listening to the band. Being with the band. There a lot of good nineties nostalgia scattered throughout.
The middle of the book was slow at times and I didn't always care for Sybil's Shock articles which are placed throughout the book.
The ending was satisfying without tying everything up too neatly. Sybil is always romanticizing and I think by the end she realizes that love and life doesn't mirror fantasy and that's ok.
A good, solid read from an up and coming author.