Bad Timing

February 1, 2001
An unnamed 30-something Manhattan woman embarks on a hopeless not-quite-love affair in this Sex and the City-style fiction debut. Tipsy at "a trashy magazine party at a trashy new bar," the narrator is mesmerized by handsome Joseph Pendleton, a black jazz club owner, and dives into a one-night stand. A month later, she has mixed feelings when she finds herself pregnant by this married man. On the one hand, she wants a baby; on the other, as a struggling painter and magazine writer, she's not confident she can support a child. When she informs Joseph of her decision to terminate the pregnancy, their affair begins again with renewed vigor. While navigating the glossy magazine and gallery scene, the lovers do their best to figure out what, exactly, their commitment to each other should or could be. The result is a tangled and often painfully adolescent relationship, with the couple garrulously engaging in standard therapeutic-speak. The supporting characters are all stock New YorkersDthe flamboyant gay neighbor, the overbearing Jewish mother, the superficial beauty editor. Caustic racial asides are casually sprinkled throughout, but the relationship's racial dimension is never seriously addressed. This is a 21st-century love story, a typically urban tale in which love, in the classic sense of the word, is beside the point. Berne, herself a painter who has written for glossy magazines, brings a journalist's eye to her novel; every excruciating detail of a dead-end relationship is recorded. Some hip, urban female readers may identify despite themselves, but the uninflected, navel-gazing narrative lacks the energy to ring many bells.

December 20, 2000
The nameless narrator of this tale is a thirtysomething single woman living in Manhattan. She is an artist who displays some of her work in group shows but writes short pieces for fashion magazines to pay the rent. While at a hip party one night, she meets Joseph Pendleton, an older jazz musician, and begins a doomed love affair. After one night with Joseph, who is both married and a father, she becomes pregnant and is faced with whether she should keep the baby and tell him. Irrationally drawn toward him, she spends the hot summer obsessing over what he says and why he doesn't call. Her friends are no help, as they, too, are involved in bad relationships or dead-end jobs. Yet another entry in the single-girl genre, this first novel attempts to take an unblinking look at modern love in urban America but misses the mark. The vapid characters fail to engage, and the entire book lacks emotion. Buy only on demand. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/00.]--Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH

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