The Gift Book

Phillip has a lot on his mind. At home, in his unnecessarily large, excessively expensive house, he is attempting to become a Taoist

master of love with his wife, Alice, but his quest is forever being interrupted by the requests of his twin daughters — "Can we have a pony, please?"; "We want to go to boarding school." At work, in his shed/office at the bottom of the garden, between countless games of Minesweeper and FreeCell, Phillip is trying to pay the mortgage by writing the instruction manuals to Korean bread-making machines. And at parties where he is concerned that he is not taken seriously — he is variously mistaken as a waiter and a rhinoplastic surgeon — Phillip tells the world he is, in fact, a screenwriter.

Above all, Phillip is obsessing about his best friends, Barry and Sean. They are rich, more successful, and, most worryingly, they give great presents. Their gifts are always exquisite — a full set of Italian crockery, a handmade corkscrew from Venice; they give them on birthdays, at parties, and quite often for no reason whatsoever; and, increasingly, these presents break all bounds of generosity.

They are gifts that hurt a man's pride. And they can never be matched. Which doesn't mean Phillip won't try. . . .

About the Author

David Flusfeder is the author of three previous novels, including Man Kills Woman. Born in Summit, New Jersey, he now lives in London.

The New York Times

The Gift mines the same veins of male envy and bitterness that Martin Amis so ably tapped in The Information, and the darkness that creeps into Phillip's pathetic quest lends his comic misadventures a satisfying depth. Even when Flusfeder's protagonist is at his most grotesque, only the most fortune-blessed readers will fail to recognize in themselves the same disappointments that transform Phillip into such a rough but amusing beast. —Scott Sutherland