Turning Thirty

September 5, 2005
Brit Matt Beckford and girlfriend Elaine agree, one evening in their Brooklyn apartment, that while they love each other, they're no longer in love, and break up. Reassessing as his 30th birthday looms, Matt arranges to relocate to Australia and decides to show up at his parents' doorstep in England to kill the three months until he's needed at his new job. A good deal of time is spent on philosophizing, punctuated by hand-wringing transcontinental e-mail exchanges with Elaine (who works at a big-shot PR firm and worries over the time spent e-mailing Matt). Matt ends up reuniting with his old high school gang, including onetime friend-with-benefits Ginny. Soon, he's wondering if he should spend the rest of his life with her... and Elaine decides to visit. On one level, this reads like straight chick lit, with stock characters and familiar entering-adulthood coupling situations. But Gayle, author of Dinner for Two
and two other U.K.-only titles, gives Matt's first person nice twists of out-of-touch unreliability, and makes Elaine, as suddenly forlorn e-mailer, comic. Readers who have lived beyond 30, or even 25, will know instantly that most of their self-justifications are BS—just as all the to-ing and fro-ing is inevitable—and smile to themselves.

August 15, 2005
Move over, ladies; here British author Gayle ("Dinner for Two") clues us into the male perspective on the Big 3-0. Computer programmer Matt Beckford works in the New York office of a company that manufactures financial software. On the cusp of this auspicious anniversary, he and live-in American girlfriend Elaine mutually decide the bloom is off their rose. He moves back to his parents' home in Birmingham for three months before taking a plum spot in the firm's Australian bureau. It is the view from his childhood bedroom that propels this witty look at men and their concerns about "growing up." Matt's school chums -Gershwin, his oldest friend, now married and a dad, and Ginny, his sexual partner/just friend from that long-ago era -embody the relationships that meant so much to him as a teenager and that now support the adult who doesn't quite know how life turned out as it has. Gayle's characters are charming, sad, funny, and vulnerable. And though Matt perhaps agonizes ad nauseam about the pending birthday, you can't fault him too much. After all, it's not every day a bloke turns 30. This delightful novel is recommended for public libraries. -Bette-Lee Fox, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2005
British novelist Gayle, author of " My Legendary Girlfriend" (2002) and " Dinner for Two" (2004), tackles the big 3-0 in his latest novel to hit stateside. Matt Beckford has a good job in New York and lives with his beautiful girlfriend, Elaine. But when Elaine breaks up with him, Matt finds himself on a new course, requesting a transfer and moving back home to Birmingham to live with his parents in the interim. Matt is none too thrilled by the prospect of turning 30 while living in his childhood home, but he finds himself revisiting his youth by reconnecting with two old friends: his best friend, Gershwin, now married with a young daughter, and Ginny, the girl who was never quite Matt's girlfriend but with whom he shared a strong connection. Readers, especially those approaching 30 or just past it, will especially relate to the struggles of Matt and his friends to find direction and love in the face of a benchmark birthday. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)