My Old Man

From the New York Times bestselling author and one of the citys most provocative columnists comes a hip, contemporary novel about love, lust, and living in the same neighborhood as your parents.

When twenty-six-year-old Rachel Block started rabbinical school, she didnt think shed be dropping out after a semester and a half. But when a sick man dies under her counseling, she realizes shes not cut out for the rabbinate. To make ends meet, she takes a job as a bartender in Cobble Hill, her Brooklyn neighborhood -- much to her parents chagrin. Until now Rachel has always been the perfect daughter, getting straight As and dating nice Jewish boys. Now shes fending off come-ons from sleazy guys and trying to remember the ingredients in a Metropolitan. Its the quintessential quarter-life crisis, compounded by the fact that shes still living just blocks from her childhood home. To make matters worse, shes having trouble sleeping -- she can barely get through the night without being awakened by the amorous noises of her sexy friend and upstairs neighbor, Liz Kaminsky.
Then Rachel falls in love with Hank Powell, an iconoclastic screenwriter twice her age (and a Gentile!) and finds herself acting more and more like Liz. Suddenly shes reassessing her values, her surroundings, and everything shes ever believed about the "right" kind of relationship. She begins dressing up in outrageous outfits for midday trysts, while hiding the dirty details from a newly modest Liz. Meanwhile, her interactions with her father, with whom shes always been close, have become increasingly strange. Is he distraught that shes dropped out of school? Is he having his own (midlife) crisis? Or is he upset over her mothers newfound independence, now that shes entered menopause and discovered the joys of a book group? Somethings up...and Rachels increasingly convinced it might be her fathers libido.
With Rachels own relationship getting wilder and weirder and her parents acting like teenagers, it seems that everyone in Cobble Hill is going crazy. A fresh spin on Philip Roths Portnoys Complaint, My Old Man is a sexy comedy about a dysfunctional Brooklyn family coming apart at the seams.