Love Creeps: A Novel [Hardcover]

Amanda Filipacchi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 2005

LOVE CREEPS is a story of desire: the lack of it, the loss of it; the excess of it, the insanity of it. It is the story of a triangle of stalkers, who discover that sometimes the best way to find love is to look right behind you.
The story starts with Lynn Gallagher, a successful Manhattan gallery owner. On the surface, she has everything. But when she looks at the man who is stalking her obsessively, she sees the one thing she herself lacks: the power to desire.
To overcome her problem, Lynn attempts an unorthodox solution: She decides to become a stalker herself, considering it's the only way to rekindle her passion for life.
To make her task easier, she selects an attractive target: Roland Dupont, a wealthy and sophisticated lawyer. Fit and athletic, Roland's own demons are well concealed.
Roland's not about to open up to his new squash partner, Alan Morton. Squat and unappealing, Alan isn't exactly competition for Roland - on or off the squash court. When Roland finds out his friend not only knows his stalker, but loves his stalker, a new kind of rivalry ensues.
Set against a backdrop of present-day New York, LOVE CREEPS depicts three very different characters whose mishaps, missteps and role reversals combine to illustrate the fluid nature of desire and the powerlessness of any individual to control the fate or the passions of anyone--including himself.
LOVE CREEPS is a novel that asks the questions that lurk in the shadows of the contemporary dating scene: How do we explain attraction and appeal, their comings and goings? What makes us become attractive? What makes us become attracted? In matters of love, why is it that all too often the more we need, the less we get?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Elegant and accomplished but inexplicably passionless, New York contemporary art gallery owner Lynn Gallagher pursues a counterintuitive cure for her ennui in Filipacchi's (Nude Men) brisk but schematic novel. Inspired by the yearning of the man (pudgy, balding accountant Alan Morton) stalking her, Lynn seeks to regain what he seems to have but she lacks: desire. "Various men. Travel. Discovering new artists.... hearing updates on my friends' lives. I used to feel really passionate about all these things," Lynn tells her assistant. In the hopes that the act of pursuit will generate desire, Lynn arbitrarily selects a man to tail, the handsome French attorney Roland Dupont. Alan, in turn, observes the competition, joins Roland's gym and starts a reluctant friendship with his rival. Meanwhile, Roland's aversion to Lynn turns to attraction once he learns her stalking is spurious. Observing all these antics is bewildered Ray, psychologist turned homeless person, who dispenses advice (and occasionally abuse) to the determined troika. The story unfurls swiftly with amusingly sober discussions of ridiculous topics, amounting to a whimsical look at the connections we make and the desires that drive us.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Filipacchi's third novel is a study of desire and obsession in New York City. Alan Morton is besotted with Lynn Gallagher, a beautiful gallery owner he spotted at his gym. The slightly overweight, slightly balding Alan begins to stalk Lynn, a move that puzzles rather than frightens her. She herself hasn't desired anyone in quite a long time, and when she's confronted with Alan's desire for her, she decides to do something about it. So Lynn randomly picks an attractive man, a lawyer named Roland Dupont, to follow. Alan in turn befriends Roland, trying to figure out what it is that Lynn sees in the handsome but cold man. Alan devises a plan: Roland will spend one weekend with Lynn if Lynn will then spend a weekend with Alan. Roland reluctantly agrees to the plan, which ends up having consequences none of the trio could have predicted. Or the reader, for that matter--Filipacchi devises a twist so clever that readers will throw any assumptions about where the story is going out the window. Her writing is both humorous and sharp, but it's also incredibly insightful: in telling the story of these three strange people, she makes piercing observations about human nature and seemingly inexplicable behavior. Brilliant. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (May 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031234032X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312340322
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,576,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Filipacchi does it again!, June 4, 2005

By 

CoffeeGurl - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love Creeps: A Novel (Hardcover)

I loved Nude Men and Vapor and had looked forward to reading another Amanda Filipacchi novel after reading and rereading the latter book six years ago. Love Creeps is another rich, hilarious and enlightening novel with a disturbing story, disarming characters, twisted philosophies and dark humor. Gallery owner Lynn Gallagher has lost her ability to desire -- to desire life, people and the things around her. She envies her stalker, an unhappy and unappealing loser named Alan, because he desires her so much that he follows her around all the time. So, in an attempt to regain her desire for things, she decides to stalk a French lawyer named Roland Dupont. And that is the beginning of a chain of strange events and twists in stalking tendencies, all of which are viewed by a homeless former psychologist who refuses but is unable to resist analyzing the threesome's behavior. There are many twists throughout the novel.

Filipacchi has once again created a strange, smart, funny and silly story centered on obsession and the condition of the human mind and spirit. The novel is a surrealistic farce that touches on serious subjects such as child abuse, obsessive love, masochism, the meaning of one's life among other things told with a dark, ironic and humorous twist. The author finds logic in the illogical and in doing so she shocks and amuses the reader. But one cannot help but nod in agreement because some of her strange philosophies make sense. It is difficult to explain everything, but this sort of novel is excellent for reading discussions because you have so many subjects to choose from. My favorite quote was this one from Alan: "Abusers are like garbage cans. You can toss all your crap into them." This was regarding a woman he thought had sexually abused him when he was a child. He thought he could place the blame of all his failures in life on her. That is one of the many reasons you should read this book. The novel raises various questions about romantic love, such as why does someone become desirable the minute they stop desiring you? I have always wondered about that very thing and Filipacchi delves into said subject beautifully and insightfully. You will laugh with the oddball stuff that goes on with the characters. The characters are great, albeit unlikeable, but they are not meant to be likeable. The list of characters includes a sex addict and an exhibitionist. The characters have a caricature quality to them that is part of Filipacchi's signature style. All in all, I loved this novel. This is better written than Nude Men and Vapor and less over the top with the twists and turns as well. Filipacchi has been on my must-read list since her first novel and I wish she released novels more often. I couldn't recommend Love Creeps enough to those who enjoy dark, farcical comedies. But be careful, for this novel is not for the faint of heart.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes one want to take up stalking, May 30, 2005

By 

Debra Hamel (North Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love Creeps: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lynn Gallagher, a successful young gallery owner, knows what it's like to be desired. She is in fact being stalked, followed around the streets of Manhattan and peered at regularly through the windows of her workplace by a short, dumpy, balding fellow named--she later discovers--Alan. Alan doesn't inspire fear in his victim: his behavior and appearance are too ridiculous to be frightening. But Alan does inspire Lynn with envy. Having mysteriously lost her ability to feel desire for anything--food, sex, art, and so on--Lynn wants to feel for something what her stalker feels in excess for her. She decides to take up stalking herself as a therapeutic exercise, and soon selects, more or less at random, her own stalkee: Roland is a tall, reasonably attractive thirty-something who, she has reason to believe, lives conveniently close by for her purposes: "She had no intention of stalking someone who lived far away. Long-distance stalking had to be annoying."

The stalking order thus established (Alan follows Lynn who, though her heart isn't quite in it, follows Roland), the three eccentric principals of Amanda Filipacchi's Love Creeps pursue each other, literally, through the absurdities to follow, exploring many of the possible permutations of their love triangle while falling in and out of desire for one another. What makes the book's plot not only possible but often hilarious is that the stalkers make no attempt to conceal their stalking from their victims or one another: "It's always about you, isn't it?" one stalker complains to his victim. "I just don't understand why you can't pick more fun things to do, out of consideration for us poor stalkers who follow you. I mean, you knew we'd follow you. You know we can't help it. If you were truly considerate, you would consult us as to which activities we could all enjoy."

The phenomenon of stalking may not seem like particularly fertile ground for humor, but Filipacchi proves that weird obsession can be drop-dead funny. Her writing is breezy, her characters deliciously flawed. Readers may not long remember the specifics of this romantic comedy's twists and turns, but they're unlikely to forget the amusing image of a trio of love-sick stalkers pursuing one another openly through the streets, swimming pools, and beading classes of New York.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great ideas and laughter, too, May 12, 2005

By 

ChicagoReader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Creeps: A Novel (Hardcover)

I loved Amanda Filipacchi's first two books and couldn't wait to read this one, so I bought an advance copy on the internet two weeks ago. I'm glad I did. The plot is gripping and highly original -- and the characters are unforgettable. It's the kind of book that makes you laugh out loud and think about important issues at the same time. I was sad when it ended, but fortunately there was an extra chapter still to read. Read it and you'll see what I mean.