Seduction Theory: Stories [Hardcover]

Thomas Beller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995

A debut collection of contemporary tales deftly captures the awkwardness and vulnerability of life in your twenties, the ambivalence of a generation trying to grow up, and the feel of the city from the intimate vantage point of a native.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Happiness is a solid and joy a liquid," quotes Beller from Salinger in the epigraph to this first collection, aptly setting the tone for 10 tales that shimmer with hope and a youthful, if somewhat callow, jouissance. Seldom is New York City as gentle a setting as in these tender, acutely observed stories of courtship, love and youthful rites of passage. Even 42nd Street skin parlors and Harlem's mean streets are merely lurid foils for Beller's amusingly ingenuous characters as they grope their way through relationships romantic, platonic and filial. Like the protagonist of "The Hot Dog War," the self-centered, 20-something college-educated young men who feature in most of these stories are frequently unsure of how to deal with the opposite sex. "Women were like campfires to Walter: warm and comforting in the midst of wilderness, but if you didn't keep an eye on them you might end up engulfed in flames." The fires may come perilously close, as in "Nondestructive Testing" and the title story, both chronicles of amorous encounters gone awry, but they don't leave any lasting scars. Interspersed among these accounts of Manhattan mating rites are five stories about one character, Alex Fader, which track him as he grows from youth to adulthood. The last, "Live Wires," aglow with wise humor and heartfelt compassion in its depiction of a family Hanukkah party, epitomizes the writer's fondness for "the awkward, transparent fragility of people such as these."
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Thomas Beller is the author of Seduction Theory, The Sleep-Over Artist and How to Be a Man. He is a founder and editor of Open City magazine and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.com. He lives in New York City and New Orleans. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 205 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393037673
• ISBN-13: 978-0393037678
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,753,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Beller was born and raised in New York City. He has worked as Chief-of-Inventory at H&H Bagels (Broadway and 80th Street) and a staff writer at the New Yorker, the two jobs briefly overlapping. Other jobs include Bike Messenger and contributing writer to Elle, The Cambodia Daily, Spin, and Travel and Leisure Magazine. He founded and co-edited Open City Magazine for its twenty year run, and created a website, Mrbellersneighborhood.com, devoted to the urban sketch. He lives in New York and New Orleans, where he teaches at Tulane University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some good stories..., September 11, 2006

By 

D. C. Berding "Berdman" (The Nati) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seduction Theory: Stories (Paperback)

If you haven't read "How to Be a Man" I would suggest reading that over this book. With that being said, this book offers some original stories that are entertaining. However, since I read this right after "How to Be a Man" I noticed that many of the stories were the same and the writing was annoyingly similar.

Overall an entertaining collection of stories and an easy read.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sparkling writing and touching reminscence of male teenhood, April 20, 1999

By 

Michael Hickins ([e-mail]) (West Hartford, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seduction Theory: Stories (Hardcover)

Thomas Beller's prose is sparkling, smart and witty. If you ever knew--or if you ever were--a bright but off-center kid, this will be all the explanation you ever need. A lot of people have covered some of this ground before, but this is still an original.