Super Host

April 1, 2020
In Russo's charming and poignant debut, a washed-up painter renting out his West London home discovers his guests may hold the key to resolving his midlife crisis. With his career and marriage at dead ends, 50ish Bennett Driscoll's life has come to a standstill. Once a Turner Prize-nominated rising star, he can no longer call himself a full-time artist; his paintings haven't sold in two years, his gallery dropped him in favor of dead clients, and Eliza, his ex-wife (and primary breadwinner), left him for a hedge fund manager in New York. To make ends meet, Bennett has moved into the studio in his back garden and, much to his 19-year-old daughter Mia's mortification, now rents his Chiswick house on the popular vacation-rental site AirBed. Instead of reading critiques of his art, he eagerly pours over his AirBed reviews as a "Super Host." But encounters with three different tenants may set the isolated Bennett back on the path to getting unstuck as an artist and as a man. Twentysomething New Yorker Alicia arrives alone, after her friends back out of the trip, hoping to reconnect with old London acquaintances. Artist Emma is also American, but her British husband has left her alone while he tries to get his brother into rehab. Diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Emma struggles to work on her drawings despite her conviction that Bennett is spying on her. Finally there is Kirstie from Devon, who masks the trauma of her recent divorce under a veneer of sexy good cheer. Russo's lively narrative alternates between Bennett's and the women's perspectives, but it's a bit of a disappointment when Alicia and Emma check out with their stories left unresolved. Likewise, the self-absorbed hero's indecisiveness becomes a bit wearying. Still, the author writes with warm sympathy and humor. A treat for fans of Nick Hornby and Tom Perrotta.

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May 1, 2020

DEBUT In this first novel, 55-year-old Bennett Driscoll is a super host, renting out on Airbed the elegant suburban London home where he once lived with the wife who has left him and living in his backyard studio. For Bennett Driscoll is also an artist, a former Turner Prize nominee who still paints regularly, though his gallery and his audience have, like his wife, abandoned him. At least his art-student daughter stays loyal. Bennett's essentially a genial if slightly flummoxed guy, though his wittily sardonic side is revealed in the many asides to which readers are privy. But his various tenants--socially maladroit Alicia, OCD-challenged Emma, and needy new divorcee Kirstie--as well as bartender and new love interest Claire highlight Bennett's essential problem: figuring out what were the missteps in his life and what he really wants now. Meanwhile, he's haunted by space, staring out at the home he once inhabited, his sense of invaded privacy paralleling his sense of lost self. VERDICT A painter herself, Russo makes the act of creating art come alive, while effectively limning her characters in this incisive study of contemporary life. [See Prepub Alert, 12/9/19.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2020
Russo's pleasantly quirky debut traces middle-aged Bennett Driscoll's slow and not-so steady recovery from divorce. Bennett's once-promising art career has been fizzling out for decades, leaving him no option but to turn his expansive London home into an AirBed, while he sleeps on a futon in the tiny shed in the garden where he works. Bennett's story, which includes a turbulent liaison with local bartender Claire, is interwoven with those of three of his renters. Young American Alicia, returning to London to stalk a former lover, is nearly raped outside a pub, and American artist Emma has a nervous breakdown during her stay. Feisty British divorcee Kirstie fares better, as she becomes another possible love interest for Bennett. While Alicia and Emma's stories are integrated rather awkwardly into the novel, and are tonally much darker than the main story, they do broaden the narrative. Bennett is a comfortable character to get to know, as is the London through which he ambles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

September 21, 2020
Russo follows the travails of a divorced London painter–turned–apartment host in her witty, enjoyable debut. At 55, Bennett Driscoll’s paintings are no longer fashionable, and his career and private life have been derailed. To make ends meet—his gallery’s director says she’ll represent him again after he’s dead—Bennett rents out his large suburban London house on AirBed, an Airbnb-like site, and sleeps in his studio. He once scoured the Guardian for reviews of his work; now he reads reviews of his hosting and relishes his long-coveted AirBed status as Super Host while processing his recent divorce and trying to connect with his 18-year-old daughter. Russo is good at portraying female characters, particularly a series of tenants whose stories structure the novel, and who each make an impact on Bennett. There’s Alicia, a young American woman; Emma, an artist who rents the house with her husband; and Kirstie, an unhappy, failed hotelier. Russo plumbs the depths of her characters’ cynicism, which has taught them that men are indecisive and women remain primarily objects of sexual interest, and that to be a successful artist one needs to keep producing what sells. Russo is a formidable talent, and readers will be eager to see what she does next.