The Man of My Dreams
by Curtis Sittenfeld
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The Man of My Dreams Summary
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1 June 1991 julia roberts is getting married. It’s true: Her dress will be an eight-thousand-dollar custom-made two-piece gown from the Tyler Trafficante West Hollywood salon, and at the reception following the ceremony, she’ll be able to pull off the train and the long part of the skirt to dance. The bridesmaids’ dresses will be sea-foam green, and their shoes (Manolo Blahnik, $425 a pair) will be dyed to match. The bridesmaids themselves will be Julia’s agents (she has two), her makeup artist, and a friend who’s also an actress, though no one has ever heard of her. The cake will be four-tiered, with violets and sea-foam ribbons of icing. “What I want to know is where’s our invitation?” Elizabeth says. “Did it get lost in the mail?” Elizabeth—Hannah’s aunt—is standing by the bed folding laundry while Hannah sits on the floor, reading aloud from the magazine. “And who’s her fiancé again?” “Kiefer Sutherland,” Hannah says. “They met on the set of Flatliners.” “Is he cute?” “He’s okay.” Actually, he is cute—he has blond stubble and, even better, one blue eye and one green eye—but Hannah is reluctant to reveal her taste; maybe it’s bad. “Let’s see him,” Elizabeth says, and Hannah holds up the magazine. “Ehh,” Elizabeth says. “He’s adequate.” This makes Hannah think of Darrach. Hannah arrived in Pittsburgh a week ago, while Darrach—he is Elizabeth’s husband, Hannah’s uncle—was on the road. The evening Darrach got home, after Hannah set the table for dinner and prepared the salad, Darrach said, “You must stay with us forever, Hannah.” Also that night, Darrach yelled from the second-floor bathroom, “Elizabeth, this place is a b... |
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ôBeing raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesnÆt exist to accommodate you, which, in HannahÆs observation, is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into adulthood.öûfrom The Man of My Dreams In her acclaimed debut novel, Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld created a touchstone with her pitch-perfect portrayal of adolescence. Her prose is as intensely realistic and compelling as ever in The Man of My Dreams, a disarmingly candid and sympathetic novel about the collision of a young womanÆs fantasies of family and love with the challenges and realities of adult life. Hannah Gavener is fourteen in the summer of 1991. In the magazines she reads, celebrities plan elaborate weddings; in HannahÆs own life, her parentsÆ marriage is crumbling. And somewhere in between these two extremesûjust maybeûlie the answers to loveÆs most bewildering questions. But over the next decade and a half, as she moves from Philadelphia to Boston to Albuquerque, Hannah finds that the questions become more rather than less complicated: At what point can you no longer blame your adult failures on your messed-up childhood? Is settling for someone whoÆs not your soul mate an act of maturity or an admission of defeat? And if you move to another state for a guy who might not love you back, are you being pluckyûor just pathetic? None of the relationships in HannahÆs life are without complications. ThereÆs her father, whose stubbornness Hannah realizes sheÆs unfortunately inherited; her gorgeous cousin, Fig, whose misbehavior alternately intrigues and irritates Hannah; Henry, whom Hannah first falls for in college, while heÆs dating Fig; and the boyfriends who love her more or less than she deserves, who adore her or break her heart. By the time sheÆs in her late twenties, Hannah has finally figured out what she wants mostûbut she doesnÆt yet know whether sheÆll find the courage to go after it. Full of honesty and humor, The Man of My Dreams is an unnervingly insightful and beautifully written examination of the outside forces and personal choices that make us who we are. From the Hardcover edition. |
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eBooks > Titles > Authors > Literature > Modern Fiction > Curtis Sittenfeld > The Man of My Dreams