ADELLE WALDMAN reads from her novel THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P. in conversation with director MARC WEBB

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. (Picador)

Adelle Waldman, whose novel The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. has been on our bestseller list for months, discusses her book with film director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man).

A debut novel by a brilliant young woman about the romantic life of a brilliant young man.

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.

In Nate's 21st-century literary world, wit and conversation are not at all dead. Is romance? Novelist 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.

Praise for The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.:

"Deliciously funny, sharply observed, elegantly told, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is the best debut I've encountered in years, the best novel about New York, and the best novel about contemporary manhood and the crazy state of gender roles and just "contemporary" life. With a pitch perfect balance of satire and sympathy, reminiscent of Mary McCarthy's The Group, Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End, and Jay McInerney'sBrightness Falls, Adelle Waldman's voice is nevertheless entirely--and unabashedly--her own." --Joanna Smith Rakoff, author of the novel A Fortunate Age

"Novelist Adelle Waldman does a very tricky thing: she succeeds in crossing the gender line, imagining the world from behind the eyes of a male character both sympathetically and unsentimentally. This former young-literary-man-in-Brooklyn found himself cringing in recognition." --William Deresiewicz, author of A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter

"I can't remember the last novel this good about being young and smart and looking for love in the big city. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. reads as if one of the top tier 19th-century novelists zeroed her social x-ray eyes onto present-moment Brooklyn. Up-and-coming writers and artists everywhere will be squirming with uncomfortable recognition of themselves, their friends, and their psyches; far more readers will be thanking Adelle Waldman for this hilarious, big-hearted, ruthlessly intelligent, and ridiculously well-written novel." --Charles Bock, author of the best-selling novel Beautiful Children

""Bracing and astute. Waldman writes these crisp, smart sentences that are every bit as thoughtful as her characters--people whose relationships founder and flourish in ways that will captivate readers from page one." --Fiona Maazel, author of Last Last Chance and "Woke Up Lonely

Adelle Waldman is the author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Slate, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband.

Filmmaker Marc Webb most recently directed The Amazing Spider-Man 2, after helming the critically acclaimedThe Amazing Spider-Man which grossed over $750 million worldwide. Webb will direct the third installment in the series, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, scheduled for release in 2018. Webb made his feature film debut with the two-time Golden Globe nominated (500) Days of Summer for which he received The National Board of Review’s Spotlight Award, recognizing outstanding directorial debuts.