Product Description

It's a Saturday morning in Brooklyn. Joel Miller, age twenty-eight, stands outside his locked bathroom door. Behind it are his girlfriend Lisa, a Dixie cup, and a pregnancy test. While she stalls for time, Miller is left in his hallway to wonder and wait: for the results of the test, for the pieces of his addled life to come together, for some kind of divine intervention to guide his actions when Lisa finally emerges.

Thus begins Lauren Grodstein's beguiling debut novel, a wise, wonderfully assured journey deep into the heart of the commitmentphobic male. Awaiting test results that could determine his future, Miller finds himself replaying all he has seen of love so far. There was his father Stan's awkward balancing act between doting father and failed husband, and his mother Bay's refusal to accept that Stan was never coming back. There was his playboy friend Grant's devastation upon falling for the one woman he couldn't have. And most of all, there was Miller's own prior relationship--with Blair, the aloof beauty he can't stop thinking about, the one who got away. With past and present colliding in his hallway, Miller begins to realize just how little he really knows about intimacy, love and potential fatherhood--and more important, about what he's going to do next.

Reproduction is the Flaw of Love fearlessly charts the romantic odyssey of one endearing New York bachelor, and in so doing illuminates some universal truths about family, loyalty, devotion, and love.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1863085 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-28
• Released on: 2005-06-28
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 5.05" h x .52" w x 7.99" l, .52 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Grodstein's first novel (after 2002's collection The Best of Animals) is a sweet, honest account of the life and loves of 20-something Joel Miller. It's a rainy Saturday, and Miller has just been directed to walk the 12 blocks to the independent drug store in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to buy his girlfriend a pregnancy test. The rest of the novel takes place as Miller waits outside the bathroom door for Lisa to reveal the results, all the while pondering past loves and future concerns. There was his father Stan's stiff advice to "Remember the consequences, son" of what he called "the deed"—but here Miller is, living with a long-haired, potentially pregnant third-grade teacher with a broken leg. They are "admirable roommates"; they have regular "brisk, healthy sex." But is it enough? Miller recalls the complicated bonds between his depressed mother, Bay, and his father; he spent his high school years weaving his way through the emotional consequences of his father's departure and his mother's instability. But even more powerfully, Miller recalls his first love, Blair, the Park Avenue beauty whose attentions made him feel like he was "eating chocolate for the first time after a lifetime of bread." But Blair eventually teaches him a wrenching lesson about the truths of love. Grodstein's effortless prose slides forward and back in time, charting universal doubts with both specificity and economy. Her story is modest, but compulsively readable, as her familiar characters—a fumbling father, a sad mother, a confused boy, a fratty best friend and an ice princess—move in paths both inevitable and surprising.
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From AudioFile
Literary editor Joel Miller galumphs through this sad-sack tale of love won and lost with the low-level energy of a three-toed sloth. Reader Ernie Schwartz makes a gallant effort to infuse energy into the lackadaisical lothario, but to no avail. Has Joel made his girlfriend, Lisa, pregnant? By the time the question is answered, it doesn't matter. Listeners expecting the usual romantic comedy sequence of boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back will be disappointed with the disjointed episodes of poor Miller's life. Also, Schwartz's bizarre pronunciations of simple words like "khakis" and steak "tartar" bounce the reader right out of Miller's tiny universe. R.O. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
As he stands outside the bathroom door where his girlfriend, Lisa, takes a pregnancy test, 28-year-old Joel Miller considers the relationships he has had in his life so far and what becoming a father would mean to him. He examines his parents' failed marriage; he remembers the crass proclamations about girls that his childhood friend, Grant, used to make; and he recalls his adult relationships with women, most significantly with the emotionally unavailable Blair Carter, whom he was with prior to Lisa. First-novelist Grodstein ably shows how much our parents' relationship affects the kind of partners we one day become, in ways both good and bad. Miller learns to be kind and protective, but he fails to learn when it's better to leave than stay. The novel contains characters who are rich and multidimensional, from Joel's parents through his friend, Grant, who at first seems vulgar and shallow but eventually reveals a loyal and caring side. An insightful study of our search for meaningful connections. Beth Leistensnider
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