Willing A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Scott Spencer Victor Bevine HarperCollins Books
Download As PDF : Willing A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Scott Spencer Victor Bevine HarperCollins Books
Thirty-seven-year-old freelance writer Avery Jankowsky is devastated when his girlfriend, Deirdre, confesses that she has been having an affair. Beside himself with jealousy and grief, Avery accepts his uncle Ezra's advice - and his tickets to an all-expenses-paid international sex tour. Sensing a white-hot book idea (and a chance to get back at faithless Deirdre), Avery joins a group of mostly wealthy and accomplished travelers on a mad Nordic whirl, descending ever deeper into a world that is equal parts hilarity and nightmare.
From two-time National Book Award-finalist Scott Spencer comes a startling tour de force that explores the limits of male restraint, the intoxications of privilege, and the maddening dangers of freedom.
Willing A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Scott Spencer Victor Bevine HarperCollins Books
In Scott Spencer's latest novel WILLING Avery Jankowsky, the first person narrator, is thirty-seven, a down-and-out writer with not much success in his profession and even less in his love life. He is both the casualty of a brief marriage and an affair with a younger woman Deidre who confesses to him that she has been sleeping with another man. He also is obsessed about his mother's four marriages and his having to change his last name for each new stepfather. To salve his sorrow, his Uncle Ezra sends him on a $135,000 sex tour with stops in Reykjavik, Oslo and Riga. Avery sees his sex junket as a chance to get a good piece of journalism out of the trip as well.What transpires is often a comedy of errors but with an undercurrent of sadness and weariness under the froth of sexual excess. Such a motley group of fellow prostitute hounds you are unlikely to meet. They provide much of the humor but ultimate sorrow in Mr. Spencer's story. You will meet an aging doctor and his son who is a casualty of the war in Iraq, a former NBA player, a lottery winner who sends postcards back home, a very successful but dishonest businessman who has done jail time, a knife-- as in kitchen-- salesman, a man from three generations of film people-- his father made Bible epics in the 1950's but he is reduced to designing bumper stickers. The list goes on. The so-called top-of-the-line prostitutes do not fare much better under Mr. Spencer's observant eye. Four of these women (Icelandic) who meet the hungry men-- he describes as marching in single file, "like four waitresses coming in for the dinner shift." One of them waves, "like someone in a rowboat signalng for help." Another had the "soft sorrowful gaze of a hospice volunteer."
Mr. Spencer is nothing if not a wordsmith. Other examples of his writing prowess: A cafeteria Christian is "someone who helps himself to the easy and attractive parts and ignores those parts that are inconvenient or call for self-sacrifice." Avery has no illusions about his writing assignments, understanding that he is not writing the ODYSSEY and that everything he writes for a newspaper or magazine ultimately will wind up in the bottom of a bird cage. He knows "where the caged bird "c--ps." One character gives a "silent double entendre." Another character Avery describes as someone who looks like a "youngish widow, pleasantly surprised by how far her late husband's pension could be stretched with a few small economies." I can think of no contemporary writer better at describing place than Mr. Spencer. His descriptions of the cities the sex tour takes these men to are a joy to read, particularly his account of Riga.
A major flaw of this otherwise successful novel, however, is the ending (I won't spoil it for the reader) which I found unsatisfactory and unconvincing. I kept wondering how Mr. Spencer could bring this story to a conclusion. With this many balls in the air his task is difficult. Finally Mr. Spencer does not use apostrophes when he writes dialogue; nor does he separate the speakers by paragraphs, a distraction that sometimes makes reading difficult. Even though the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts, WILLING is still well worth reading.
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Willing A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Scott Spencer Victor Bevine HarperCollins Books Reviews
This novel drew me in from the first sentence and although the ending isn't quite as resonant and impactful as it could be, the whole book is such a linguistic joy, and such a truly witty and honest examination of frustrated desire and disappointment that I loved it.
Scott Spencer is a great writer, but 'Willing' is just a good book. This book has such promise, a guy flees a failing relationship plagued by deceit and infidelity by taking his uncle up on an offer for a once in a life time first class sex tour around the world. The lead character grapples with his feelings and emotions as he travels on this tour. At times its profound, and then it can turn almost maddening. The book gathers some great steam only to fail completely in the final act.
Scott Spencer is a great writer, but 'Willing' is just an ok book. This book has such promise, a guy flees a failing relationship plagued by deceit and infidelity by taking his uncle up on an offer for a once in a life time first class sex tour around the world. The lead character grapples with his feelings and emotions as he travels on this tour. At times its profound, and then it can turn almost maddening. The book gathers some great steam only to fail completely in the final act.
Spencer has one of the best endings I've read in his book "Men in Black", but here he has a deus ex machina event that just doesn't work and ultimately denigrates a fairly strong effort. In many ways Willing is an incomplete book with a whiplash ending. Spencer is better than this and so that's what makes reading this book all the more frustration. As I've said with other great writers and books that have missed their mark... What happened to the editor? The book was released by Harper Collins, not too shabby of a publisher, and yet no one saw that the gem of this book gets cracked by a truly awful ending?
Not bad. For fans of "Endless Love." Pretty original. Might make a funny movie but Spencer hasn't had good luck with two movie adaptations of "Endless Love." The second one was worse than the first. And the first was directed by the hack Franco Zefferelli and starred the untalented Brooke Sheilds. The actor who played David was intense and beautiful but apparently never made anotherovie. Too bad. The odious Tom Cruise has a walk on.
Spencer's best work (Endless Love, Waking the Dead) is always compelling, and this one deserves to join that group. Avery Jankowsky, our hero, is a strikingly weird character who nevertheless emerges as completely likeable. As usual, Spencer turns out more than his fair share of beautifully crafted sentences, some of which are so delicious they warrant re-reading and savoring, like the second bite of an amazing dessert, as in this description of basketball player "His long legs were stretched out, his ankles crossed; his voice was deep, with something amused and generous in it, a lubricating willingness to think well of people." The book has a wonderful ending, the only instance I know of where the classic deus ex machina takes the form of Jewish mother. Highly recommended.
In Scott Spencer's latest novel WILLING Avery Jankowsky, the first person narrator, is thirty-seven, a down-and-out writer with not much success in his profession and even less in his love life. He is both the casualty of a brief marriage and an affair with a younger woman Deidre who confesses to him that she has been sleeping with another man. He also is obsessed about his mother's four marriages and his having to change his last name for each new stepfather. To salve his sorrow, his Uncle Ezra sends him on a $135,000 sex tour with stops in Reykjavik, Oslo and Riga. Avery sees his sex junket as a chance to get a good piece of journalism out of the trip as well.
What transpires is often a comedy of errors but with an undercurrent of sadness and weariness under the froth of sexual excess. Such a motley group of fellow prostitute hounds you are unlikely to meet. They provide much of the humor but ultimate sorrow in Mr. Spencer's story. You will meet an aging doctor and his son who is a casualty of the war in Iraq, a former NBA player, a lottery winner who sends postcards back home, a very successful but dishonest businessman who has done jail time, a knife-- as in kitchen-- salesman, a man from three generations of film people-- his father made Bible epics in the 1950's but he is reduced to designing bumper stickers. The list goes on. The so-called top-of-the-line prostitutes do not fare much better under Mr. Spencer's observant eye. Four of these women (Icelandic) who meet the hungry men-- he describes as marching in single file, "like four waitresses coming in for the dinner shift." One of them waves, "like someone in a rowboat signalng for help." Another had the "soft sorrowful gaze of a hospice volunteer."
Mr. Spencer is nothing if not a wordsmith. Other examples of his writing prowess A cafeteria Christian is "someone who helps himself to the easy and attractive parts and ignores those parts that are inconvenient or call for self-sacrifice." Avery has no illusions about his writing assignments, understanding that he is not writing the ODYSSEY and that everything he writes for a newspaper or magazine ultimately will wind up in the bottom of a bird cage. He knows "where the caged bird "c--ps." One character gives a "silent double entendre." Another character Avery describes as someone who looks like a "youngish widow, pleasantly surprised by how far her late husband's pension could be stretched with a few small economies." I can think of no contemporary writer better at describing place than Mr. Spencer. His descriptions of the cities the sex tour takes these men to are a joy to read, particularly his account of Riga.
A major flaw of this otherwise successful novel, however, is the ending (I won't spoil it for the reader) which I found unsatisfactory and unconvincing. I kept wondering how Mr. Spencer could bring this story to a conclusion. With this many balls in the air his task is difficult. Finally Mr. Spencer does not use apostrophes when he writes dialogue; nor does he separate the speakers by paragraphs, a distraction that sometimes makes reading difficult. Even though the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts, WILLING is still well worth reading.
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