The Book of George: A Novel

by Kate Greathead

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

If you don’t know a George, you might be the George. Warm, wry and witty, this is a story about untapped potential and masculinity in the modern day.

From the author of the critically acclaimed Laura & Emma comes a The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. for our times: Kate Greathead's razor-sharp but big-hearted excavation of millennial masculinity, The Book of George.

If you haven't had the misfortune of dating a George, you know someone who has. He's a young man brimming with potential but incapable of following through; sweet yet noncommittal to his long-suffering girlfriend; distant from but still reliant on his mother; charmingly funny one minute, sullenly brooding the next. Here, Kate Greathead paints one particular, unforgettable George in a series of droll and surprisingly poignant snapshots of his life over two decades.

Despite his failings, it's hard not to root for George at least a little. Beneath his cynicism is a reservoir of fondness for his girlfriend, Jenny, and her valiant willingness to put up with him. Each demonstration of his flaws is paired with a self-eviscerating comment. No one is more disappointed in him than himself (except maybe Jenny and his mother). As hilarious as it is resonant and as singular as it is universal, The Book of George is a deft, unexpectedly moving portrait of one man--but also countless others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250351029
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/08/2024
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kate Greathead is the author of Laura & Emma. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and on PRX’s The Moth Radio Hour. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Teddy Wayne, and their children.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/02/2024

Greathead (Laura & Emma) offers a wry and riveting story of wasted potential that follows its eponymous protagonist from the ages of 12 to 38. As a boy, George’s relationship with his parents is distant. When his mother, Ellen, divorces his clothes-horse father, Denis, George’s contempt for Denis grows. In college, George drifts further from Denis after he develops a thriving friend group. When Denis has a stroke, George puts off visiting him until it’s too late, marking the onset of lifelong feelings of guilt and depression. Greathead keenly depicts the ways in which George’s fractured family and grief contribute to his low self-esteem, which he masks under his narcissism and unjust critique of others, including his long-term girlfriend, Jenny, who supports him while he interns at a hedge fund and later quits working to pursue writing. George, though self-absorbed, shows enough potential for redemption to sustain Jenny’s interest as well as the reader’s, and Jenny delivers the book’s best lines (“Some people go through life trying to build others up.... You like to poke holes”). As George considers Jenny’s accusations, it’s a testament to Greathead’s skill that he becomes a character worth rooting for. This is a revelation. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2024

George is a guy like any guy—any human really; limited simply by who he is. He'd like to be better, but just isn't. He grows up; he screws up; he's in and out of a relationship with his (sometime) girlfriend, Jenny…mostly out. He manages, through some freakish luck, to score a starring role in a hit Super Bowl commercial, and the money that has eluded him for so long finally rolls in. Naturally, it rolls right out again when he lets himself be talked into investing the whole pile in Bitcoin. Nevertheless, in spite of his frustrating inability to catch fire, George is admirable for his insistence, his never-say-die attitude, his inability to be anything but true to who he is. Even his failed relationship with Jenny, which ends in both going their separate ways, is something of a qualified success. VERDICT Greathead's (Laura & Emma) latest, which follows the title character from childhood to middle age, is a warm-hearted and gently humorous examination of a chronic failure. Left open to question is what happens to George next? Sequel?—Michael F. Russo

Library Journal

2024-07-19
A novel about the fragility of millennial masculinity.

Greathead’s novel chronicles the eponymous George’s life from childhood to early middle age. The book begins with George’s mother criticizing his father’s spending habits at 12-year-old George’s graduation from a drug-abuse-resistance program. George is aware of his father’s financial shortcomings as well as his mother’s contempt. While he watchesJackass with his sister, he can’t help but feel “implicated in his mother’s disgust with lowbrow contemporary culture, as though he were somehow responsible for it by being a member of the generation it was directed toward.” This disgust for lowbrow culture is also a disgust for performances of masculinity that are neither nice nor successful. When his father dies a few years later of a stroke, George is suspicious of people who exude naïveté or optimism. “Their cheery innocence,” he reflects, “was like an abrasive on a wound.” As George comes of age, he develops an on-again, off-again relationship with a woman named Jenny, who loves him openly, though he will not, at first, say it back. He exhibits outbursts of anger and is so critical of others that Jenny tells him, “Some people go through life trying to build others up….You like to poke holes.” Though George can be unlikable, he is self-aware. “George had been feeling like a loser recently,” Greathead writes toward the end, though he’s been behaving like one for some time. Ultimately, it’s unclear what George wants out of life or how he plans to succeed without leaning on his girlfriend, sister, or mother financially and emotionally. Greathead’s portrayal of an aggrieved white man struggling to find his place in the world is as much a portrait of an unsuccessful artist as a young man as it is a portrait of our times.

A mordantly wry examination of one disgruntled man’s life.

Kirkus Reviews

Named a Notable Fiction Book of 2024 by The Washington Post

Named a Best Book of 2024 by Real Simple

“Delicious. . . Greathead attains a perfect balance among irritation, pathos and comedy. . . The Book of George captures the curdled resentment of a generation of young men unwilling or unable to adjust to a long-overdue redistribution of power and opportunity.”

—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“The protagonist of this comic novel is George, a millennial with vague writerly aspirations, who sustains his aimless life style by drawing on family connections and his girlfriend’s trust fund. . . . The women in George’s life, who bear the brunt of his self-absorption, confront him with his egotism in occasional moments of clarity—but whether they can cure him, this wry story suggests, is less clear.”

—The New Yorker

“Greathead has quietly delivered a scathing indictment of millennials in a novel that risks becoming one of those that defines a generation.”

—Ian McAllen, Chicago Review of Books

“[A] deadpan, hilarious new novel . . . Greathead’s skewering of this 'specific kind of male arrogance' is deeply satisfying, but her finely layered portrait is not without pity—it’s strangely, unexpectedly humanizing.”

—Oprah Daily

“Clever and thoughtful, with legit LOL moments, this original read is moving in ways you won’t see coming.”

—Kristyn Kusek Lewis, Real Simple

“Greathead is a gifted storyteller who reels off dialogue filled with wit and humor so well it makes page-turning a pleasure. . . . Page after page, her writing is full of humor built around prickly sarcasm and woebegone twists in George’s life. There are serious, even sad, moments, plus plot turns that give the narrative depth. The reader may begin to feel an emotional tug. . .real poignancy.”

—Kendal Weaver, Associated Press

“Equally hilarious and heartbreaking, The Book of George reads like a modern epic.”

—Isabelle Eyman, Camille Styles

“As accurate a portrait of 21st-century college-educated millennial brownstone Brooklyn . . . as I have ever read.”

—The Morning News

“A revelation.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Greathead is an excellent witness to her characters’ exceedingly human conditions and a deadpan comedian of manners, and The Book of George flows like an open tap.”

—Booklist

“Greathead’s delicious deadpan delivery,with its understatement and ironic humor, is addicting.”

—BookPage

“A mordantly wry examination of one disgruntled man’s life. . . . Greathead’s portrayal of an aggrieved white man struggling to find his place in the world is as much a portrait of an unsuccessful artist as a young man as it is a portrait of our times.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“This book is a knockout. Mesmerizing from page one, it’s Stoner meets Mrs. Bridge meets George, the millennial male we can't look away from. Kate Greathead has gifted us with a character for the ages and a novel that is sure to be swooned over and endlessly discussed.”

—Maria Semple, New York Times bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette

“Kate Greathead is an astonishingly talented writer. Every sentence in this novel glitters with insight and humor. A perceptive, funny and tender portrayal of the complicated relationships that define our adulthood.”

—Alison Espach, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding People

“The Book of George is not only an excellent novel, it’s also one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time. Engaging from the first page, it nevertheless gains momentum as it progresses, deftly building toward something larger and unexpected, a portrait of a character—and to an extent a generation—that's as convincing as it is moving.”

—Adelle Waldman, bestselling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. and Help Wanted

From the Publisher

Blair Baker's narration effectively frames the story of a privileged young man who is struggling to see the world beyond himself--even if he's not aware of his own limitations. Listeners observe the development of George, an inauspicious male in his 20s who continues the unfulfilled promises of his youth and lacks critical awareness of the people close to him. He survives on a potent mix of luck and assistance from family and friends. Baker handles humor, conflict, and cringeworthy events with subtle timing while fully embodying the characters, including George's girlfriend. Baker captures the overarching impact of the audiobook, making this listening experience exceptional, especially for the Georges who may hear themselves in the narrative. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2025 - AudioFile