Early Work

May 1, 2018
Two would-be writers embark on an affair, testing commitments to existing partners, their creative efforts, and each other in this clever morality tale.When Peter meets Leslie, sparks fly and the dialogue crackles with irony and snark--as it often determinedly does among Martin's small cast of well-educated artistic types. The two are around 30, and both are feeling doubt about their desire to be fiction writers. They also both have serious partners. Peter lives with Julia in Virginia, where she attends medical school and writes poetry. He teaches and tends to dither. "I preferred to do nothing. This was not Julia's favorite aspect of my character." Leslie has a fiance in Montana, but she is having second thoughts about the marriage and has come to Virginia to visit her aunt. Peter narrates the bulk of the tale, an anatomy of his affair with Leslie and dishonesty with Julia. (" 'We're adults, ' I said, the universal verbal marker of childish behavior.") Three sections with a third-person narrator deliver slices of Leslie's life: a relationship with a woman in New York; how she got to know her fiance; and where she ends up. The structure is a bit creaky, though it gives Leslie some pointed limelight as a character apart from Peter--and it gives readers a break from Peter's voice, which can be tiresome. His own narration reveals him to be irresponsible and living "[a] pantomime of commitment," marked by steady consumption of alcohol and pot. There are nearly as many references to drinking as there are to great writers. Meanwhile, his depiction of the warm, brainy, intriguing Julia makes his treatment of her all the worse. And Leslie: Is she Peter's muse or foil or female counterpart? Or none of the above? But that would be telling.A well-written and often amusing debut about what it takes to succeed or fail in love or art.

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July 16, 2018
That moment in early adulthood when life seems full of possibilities but is also incredibly scary forms the sweet spot of Martin’s astute debut. Peter Cunningham, a compulsive reader and lover of literature (but not of academia), teaches in a women’s prison while trying to finish writing his first novel. He has abandoned a rigorous PhD program at Columbia to follow his undergraduate lover, Julia, to medical school in Virginia, where they adopt a dog, settle in, and drift apart. Peter finds a whole new set of friends and, with time on his hands, enjoys himself with them while Julia works tirelessly. For Peter, it’s the mental acknowledgement of an estrangement that causes the separation to widen. Just as these new friends take over Peter’s life, the novel shifts focus, from Peter’s first-person narrative to a third-person examination of Leslie, a woman who has clear romantic chemistry with Peter. The book’s seven parts alternate between these two perspectives. Leslie’s backstory traces her young adulthood up to the point where she meets Peter. Her path is similarly rootless, with stints in New York and Montana for graduate school. Peter keeps the relationship a secret from Julia as long as he can, with significant consequences. This is a smart and beautifully observed story about fallible people.