Adriane on the Edge [Hardcover]

Paul Mandelbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 6, 2005

Adriane Gelki wants desperately to cultivate a life of devil-may-care, transcendent abandon-the kind personified by her hero, Thelonious Monk. So far she has yet to manage it-to be completely abandoned-except by other people. Like her father, who killed himself when she was fourteen, and her mother, who followed suit ten years later. Now staring down thirty, Adriane's about to embark on a series of misadventures destined to change her life. In very short order, she manages to: get herself busted for flashing an undercover cop, break her court-appointed therapist's ribs, and ruin a perfectly pleasant orgy. For Adriane Gelki, things are finally starting to look up. This charming and incisive novel revels in the tragicomic journey of life-wherever it may lead.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mandelbaum's lukewarm attempt at literary chick lit (after Garrett in Wedlock) stars Adriane Gelki, a confused, single woman approaching her 30s, stumbling through life's myriad complications and discovering her potential at odd intervals. Though gainfully employed at the Baltimore mayor's Office of Neighborhood Enhancement, Adriane's got issues: the daughter of a double-suicide, her feelings of abandonment permeate her life. Her attempts to "live a little" begin when she propositions an undercover cop as a joke, which leads to her arrest for prostitution, followed by obligatory counseling with a therapist who dies on her in the midst of a session. A subsequent series of bizarre events don't quite gel. Adriane meets a porn-producing Frenchman, dates a polyamorous man who brings her to a New Year's Eve sex party, and adopts a stray dog whom she nurtures in her bed like a lover until it bites off her ear in the middle of the night. Inspired by her idol, Thelonius Monk, Adriane channels her emotions into playing piano at a dive bar that eventually gets held up. In a final twist, she travels to India on a spiritual quest. Loose ends and relentless implausibility prevent this story from living up to the promise of Mandelbaum's creative talents.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Mandelbaum (Garrett in Wedlock, 2004), like novelist Anne Tyler, is fond of using Baltimore as a setting, homing in on endearingly eccentric characters, and suffusing the whole with a gentle whimsy. Rendering his own skewed version of the chick-lit formula, Mandelbaum presents this highly amusing, wholly entertaining novel-in-stories detailing the crackpot (mis)adventures of Adriane Gelki. Uptight, neurotic Adriane is well aware that she needs to lighten up and decides to pursue a course of action that will allow her to live her life with abandon. Researching the writing of personal ads, she meets a wheelchair-bound hellion who talks her into flashing a stranger; however, he turns out to be an undercover cop, and she is arrested. So goes life for the lonely, hapless Adriane, but in resilient fashion, she refuses to give up her quest, and readers will be delighted as she embarks on a disastrous hunt for the perfect bagel during a blizzard in Montreal and disrupts a meeting of the Greater Baltimore Polyamory Society on New Year's Eve. Long live Adriane! Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Hardcover; First Edition edition (December 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425208036
• ISBN-13: 978-0425208038
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,133,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good read, February 27, 2006

By 

P. LEFF "Flitter54" (Salt Lake Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adriane on the Edge (Hardcover)

A nice weekend read. The book felt a little unfinished but will bring a tear to your eye. Poor Adriane is not living in a fantasy world like so many stories I have read lately but trying to deal with alot of emotional baggage that almost anyone can feel great deal of empathy towards.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Episodic story of one woman, May 8, 2007

By 

Rachel Thern "kiravae" (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adriane on the Edge (Paperback)

Adriane Gelki is a young woman with problems who tries to improve her life by living with "abandon", not worrying about the consequences of her actions. She is alternately likeable and exasperating as her attempts at change lead her to do some good things and also to sometimes act like what could most charitably be described as a spazz. Each chapter is a rather self-contained episode of her life. While the book is a fun read with a mix of serious and funny content, the problem I had with it is that it felt more like a series of short stories than a novel with a conclusion.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars amusing yet deep character study with a serious undertone, December 10, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adriane on the Edge (Hardcover)

At twenty-eight Baltimore area single, Adriane Gelki struggles with her existence caused by her deep rooted feelings of being unwanted and unloved by anyone ever since her parents committed a double suicide. She works at City Hall's Office of Neighborhood Enhancement, but feels like a member of the living dead as her gut wrenching loneliness reaches every aspect of her soul and in a self prophecy Pygmalion Effect prevents her from reaching out to others, which in turn isolates her further.

Digging into her heart for courage, Adriane vows to live life on the edge, which in her case is a very tiny but critical step towards meeting someone. Joking, a new concept for Adriane, she solicits an undercover cop only to be arrested for prostitution; sentenced to counseling, Adriane feels at home when her therapist drops dead during their session. Every effort to join the living seems to lead to a further setback; even her adopted dog bites her during the night. Still Adriane continues her pledge to live albeit not to successfully.

ADRIANE ON THE EDGE is an amusing yet deep character study of a young woman trying desperately to find herself beyond the shadow life she lives by connecting with others; a daunting task for an individual never recovered from her parents' suicides. The series of incidents that Adriane fumbles and stumbles through are hyperbole that leads to a dark serio-comedy as beyond the laugher is the fundamental need to belong. Paul Mandelbaum uses graveyard humor to provide a picture of hope even when the darkness engulfs seemingly every molecule that makes up a person who just wants to connect with anyone.

Harriet Klausner