Biographical note:

Excerpt from book:

1

It was too late to pretend he hadn't seen her. Juliet was already squinting with recognition. For an instant she looked pleased to make out a familiar face on a crowded street. Then she realized who it was.

"Nate."

"Juliet! Hi. How are you?"

At the sound of his voice, a tight little grimace passed over Juliet's eyes and mouth. Nate smiled uneasily.

"You look terrific," he said. "How's the Journal?"

Juliet shut her eyes briefly. "It's fine, Nate. I'm fine, the Journal's fine. Everything's fine."

She crossed her arms in front of her and began gazing meditatively at a point just above and to the left of his forehead. Her dark hair was loose, and she wore a belted blue dress and a black blazer whose sleeves were bunched up near her elbows. Nate glanced from Juliet to a cluster of passersby and back to Juliet.

"Are you headed to the train?" he asked, pointing with his chin to the subway entrance on the corner.

"Really?" Juliet's voice became throaty and animated. "Really, Nate? That's all you have to say to me?"

"Jesus, Juliet!" Nate took a small step back. "I just thought you might be in a hurry."

In fact, he was worried about the time. He was already late to Elisa's dinner party. He touched a hand to his hair—it always reassured him a little, the thick abundance of his hair.

"Come on, Juliet," he said. "It doesn't have to be this way."

"Oh?" Juliet's posture grew rigid. "How should it be, Nate?"

"Juliet—" he began. She cut him off.

"You could have at least—" She shook her head. "Oh, never mind. It's not worth it."

Could have at least what? Nate wanted to know. But he pictured Elisa's wounded, withering look if he showed up so late that all her guests had to wait on him to start dinner, heard her slightly nasal voice brushing off his apology with a "whatever," as if she had long since ceased to be surprised by any new bad thing he did.

"Look, Juliet, it was great to see you. And you do look great. But I've really got to go."

Juliet's head jerked back. She seemed almost to wince. Nate could see—it was obvious—that she took his words as a rejection. Immediately, he was sorry. He saw her suddenly not as an adversary but as a vulnerable, unhappy young—youngish—woman. He wanted to do something for her, say something earnest and truthful and kind.

"You're an asshole," she said before he had the chance.

She looked at him for a fraction of a second and then turned away, began walking quickly toward the river and the adjacent strip of restaurants and bars. Nate nearly called after her. He wanted to try, at least, to put things on a better footing. But what would he say? And there was no time.

Juliet's strides, as she receded into the distance, were long and determined, but she moved stiffly, like a person determined not to let on that her shoes hurt her feet. Reluctantly, Nate started walking in the opposite direction. In the deepening twilight, the packed street no longer seemed festive but seedy and carnival-like. He got stuck behind a trio of young women with sunglasses pushed up on their heads and purses flapping against their hips. As he maneuvered around them, the one closest twisted her wavy blonde hair around her neck and spoke to her companions in a Queen Bee–ish twang. Her glance

Writer Nate Piven’s star is rising. After several lean and striving years, he has his pick of both magazine assignments and women: Juliet, the hotshot business reporter; Elisa, his gorgeous ex-girlfriend, now friend; and Hannah, “almost universally regarded as nice and smart, or smart and nice,” who holds her own in conversation with his friends. When one relationship grows more serious, Nate is forced to consider what it is he really wants.

Through her brilliant debut novel, Adelle Waldman plunges into the psyche of a flawed, sometimes infuriating modern man, one who thinks of himself as beyond superficial judgment, yet constantly struggles with his own status anxiety, who is drawn to women, yet has a habit of letting them down in ways that may just make him an emblem of our times. With tough-minded intelligence and wry good humor, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is an absorbing tale of one young man’s search for happiness—and an inside look at how he really thinks about women, sex, and love.