Amazon.com Review
He says: "A one-night stand. No complications. Just another chalk mark on the board. A bit of harmless fun."
She says: "You have no idea how much I hate being on my own."
They are Jack and Amy, two twentysomething singles living in London, and the central characters in Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees's joint effort, Come Together. Jack is an artist who scrapes out a living by day working part-time in a gallery and prowls the bars by night looking to "pull." Amy is a temp with dreams of becoming a fashion designer. When the two meet at a party, they spend the whole night talking; both enjoy the conversation, but while Amy starts thinking that Jack "could well be my perfect man," his thoughts run along more basic lines--he wants to see her again because "I haven't had sex for over a week and you haven't had sex for over six months. Because, Amy, we therefore have a mutual need. And, yeah, because I fancy you, too."
That last sentiment is important. Though Jack starts out trying to seduce Amy into a casual fling, he ends up falling for her hard. There's only one problem: the little matter of the nude portrait he's doing of Sally McCullen, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde and former obsession. Told in alternating he said-she said chapters, Come Together is fairly predictable plot-wise, but the prose is effortlessly comical, the characters endearing, and the details of dating in the '90s hilariously spot-on. An added frisson of enjoyment comes from the fact that Lloyd and Rees became a couple themselves in the course of writing this novel. --Alix Wilber
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Collaborating as alternating male and female voices, Rees (The Book of Dead Authors) and Lloyd (It Could Be You) draw a slacker-love roadmap that allows readers of each gender to see what the other really thinks. Currently engaged to marry in real life, the writing couple have created West London Bridget Jones-wannabes Jack Rossiter and Amy Crosbie, who rival their precursor in list making and neurotic fretting, if not in charm: each has a sardonic, unapologetic edge that makes them less endearing than Bridget. At 25, chronic office temp Amy hasn't had sex for months. Struggling artist Jack, 27, sees his single life as "a state of siege" (his rule of thumb: don't give up complete no-strings-attached sexual freedom until your "Uberbabe" comes along). The two meet, talk all night, immediately go off to obsess about each other. Amy's judgment of Jack by "vital statistics" makes us wonder about the depth of the mutual attraction, but as one watches them endure every possible relationship pratfall and misunderstanding, the emotional ante rises for a happy-ever-after. Their biggest blowup is the most interesting, if only for its current-events echoes: does Jack's "accidental fellatio" count as infidelity? Gen-Xers will find all of their culture and conflict in these pages?honesty, jealousy, vacations from hell, condoms. Anyone over 35, however, will be as dismayed as they are entertained by the jadedness and naivete of the characters' concerns. Agents, Vivienne Shuster and Jonny Geller. Rights sold in Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Greece; film rights to Working Title Films; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
