The Book of George

August 15, 2024
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 na�vet� 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.

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September 1, 2024

Greathead (Laura & Emma) invents the idea of "George," the kind of man who has lots of potential but no follow-through, won't commit, and can be moody. This George is dating Jenny and is both cynical and self-aware. Greathead charts his course with humor and astute observation. Prepub Alert.

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September 15, 2024
Greathead's second novel follows her memorable debut, the darkly funny and closely observed mother-daughter story, Laura & Emma (2018). This book proceeds by years in the life of lackadaisical George. A child of some privilege, George never really gets over his parents' divorce and his dad's subsequent early death. He floats and charms through college and early adulthood with seeming ease, but readers see how often he is totally uncomfortable, even when everything's going his way. Even after he meets the saintly Jenny, whom he'll date (and disappoint) for a decade. Even though he's the kind of person for whom a mildly embarrassing incident earns him a couple hundred grand and a bit of overnight celebrity. While the book is indeed all about George, it feels like Jenny's story, like an exercise in learning everything about your most enraging ex, who is also somehow the one who got away. 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.

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Starred review from September 2, 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.