The Thursday Night Men
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Three friends meet weekly to commiserate over romantic disasters in “a marvelous novel—light, funny and genuine, while still being quite emotional” (Kirkus Reviews).
Every Thursday night at seven o’clock, three men meet in Paris. Each man’s life, story, and situation is as different from the others’ as can be. What unites them is heartache. Trouble, that is, with women. The meetings are held in a spirit of openness and tolerance. In an almost religious silence each man confesses while the others listen.
Philippe is a philosopher of repute. Since the woman he considered to be his perfect mate left him, he’s been dating one of the world’s most famous models in an effort to forget. Denis has been working as a waiter for years. Women have lost interest in him entirely and he is in a deep funk because of it. But one day a mysterious woman with a suitcase appears on his doorstep and moves into his living room without explanation, throwing his life into turmoil. Yves is a husband who, after having discovered his wife’s betrayal, refuses to honor any and all forms of faithfulness. He is spending a lifetime’s worth of savings in search of pleasure.
In The Thursday Night Men, Tonino Benacquista gives readers a variety of unexpected and amusing perspectives on romance, the relationship between the sexes, and male friendships.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Benacquista establishes the premise of his new novel with brisk economy. Sitting among the ever-changing crowd of regulars who meet Thursday evenings at different locations throughout Paris to eulogize their broken hearts are Yves, a glazier and, for five whole years, a happily married man; Denis, a charming head waiter who s hit an inexplicable streak of romantic bad luck; and Philippe, an intellectual who was dumped by a beautiful woman, in every way his equal, when his ego got the better of him. Though Benacquista (Badfellas) keeps his stories moving briskly, he falls on his face with his female characters. The majority are prostitutes, working to help characters like Yves heal while adding prurience to the prose. Mia is a narcissistic fashion model and Marie-Jeanne, a stranger who moves in with Denis, functions only to repair his damaged ego. Clich d and glib, Benacquista s latest effort constitutes another male fantasy of moral relativism and a betrayal of an intriguing premise.
