Love: Enter [Paperback]

Paul Kafka-Gibbons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 18, 1997

A romantic, computer-age love story set in Paris and New Orleans. Young Dan Shoenfeld, spending a year abroad after college, falls in love with Bou and Margot, two women who happen to be in love with each other. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction, Paul Kafka's brilliant first novel is now available in paperback. Patricia Hampl writes, "Paul Kafka's enchanting novel brings a new dimension to the epistolary romance and a fresh face to the American in Paris. The city gleams and winks, seduces and betrays as if for the first time in this deftly written love story. It's a beauty-a crazy, unexpected, entirely winning tale: Paris love remembered by a young doctor on the milky computer screen of a New Orleans maternity ward at night. When Paul Kafka hits the Enter key to "save to memory," the story gets sent straight to the heart."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ever since Hemingway and his fellow ex-patriots wrote about it, the name Paris has conjured up powerfully romantic and bohemian images. This novel carries on the tradition but adds a fresh "twentysomething" flavor. Dan Schoenfeld is a medical intern at a New Orleans hospital's maternity ward. While on night duty awaiting births, he "enters" his memories of Paris from four years ago, when he studied ballet and fell in love with two women who loved each other, by writing letters to them and to his former best friend, Beck. He does this to understand why it all turned out as it did and why he is still haunted by that time. The juxtaposition of hospital life against the Paris ballet world is interesting, as is the literary device of interspersing Dan's memories with the hustle and bustle of the hospital. Though the details of the births become tedious, this is well-done romance reminiscent of Angel Bowie's memories of European youth in the 1960s ( Backstage Passes , Putnam, 1993). Recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/92.
- Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Bay Area Cooperative Lib. System, Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Young Americans in contemporary Paris, walking a fine line between friendship and love: the idea sounds irresistible, yet for all the care Kafka has taken with his second fiction (following the novella Home Again--not reviewed), it stubbornly refuses to fly. Meet Dan and Beck (straight males, roommates) and Margot and Bou (gay women, lovers). The four of them are on an expatriate high, digging Paris, mixing their medical studies with jazz (Beck and Margot have regular gigs) and modern dance (Dan has joined a company). (Their story is being told by Dan four years later, when they have all dispersed and Dan is helping deliver babies in New Orleans; hospital scenes are awkwardly juxtaposed with memories of Paris.) When Dan meets the two women, he falls in love with them both, ``not indistinguishably but inseparably, and always,'' cherishing their relationship. Things don't stay that high-flown, and Dan doesn't stay that starry-eyed, for all along he has been more attracted to Bou, the tall exotic New Englander, than to the more familiar Margot, like Dan a middle-class Jewish only child. Dan and Bou sleep together; Margot is predictably upset, calling Dan ``a first-class shit,'' while acknowledging that Bou always wanted ``a guy on the side.'' Then Dan discovers that Beck, too, has been sleeping with Bou, and the four-way friendship collapses like a house of cards. A busy surface (Kafka sets his scenes meticulously) but a hollow center: this aseptic love story gives off no erotic heat at all. And the characters are fuzzy: Margot is conspicuously short- changed, almost disappearing, and it's not clear whether Bou is an ``innocent menace'' or simply a tramp. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (June 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395860016
• ISBN-13: 978-0395860014
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,911,783 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes a lasting impression, May 16, 2000

By 

gail cloutier - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love: Enter (Paperback)

Every element of Paul Kafka's writing rings true. The first person narration is effective, and even though it is written from the p.o.v. of a young man, it does not seem skewed towards a male prerogative. This novel encompasses so much in its relatively short span-- romance, realistic narration, travel, and even a bit of magic and folklore in the form of a peripheral but important character. While this book makes a lasting impression it is anything but hard to read. It is all around an enjoyable experience that you will come back to.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much better than its title!, January 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Love: Enter (Paperback)

I'd have called it "Americans in Paris" or something that shows it's about four young people fulfilling their dreams before life descends on them. It's about romance among two men and two women in every possible combination, but it's also about smart and interesting people figuring out how to live with new freedom in a new environment.

The title comes from the device of having one of the characters write the story after it's been over for a while. It provides enough distance so that the dark spots aren't too dark and the bright spots are brighter.

Even if you can't identify with the characters, you're interested in them as people. It's more than a love story; it's a friendship story.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Love.Enter" a powerful novel, October 10, 2005

By 

Barry Maloney - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love: Enter (Paperback)

Paul Kakfa's writing reminds us that the real stuff of life is not merely action or intrigue; it is in intimacy and in the mysteries and convolutions of our most personal and honest relationships. A great story that grabbed me quickly and took me for a wonderful ride, "Love.Enter" is that rare concoction of the bittersweet and the poignantly hopeful. I recommend this novel.