Mr. Commitment - Hardcover

Gayle, Mike

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385501005 ISBN 13: 9780385501002

Publisher: Doubleday, 2001

Synopsis

After four years together, Benjamin Duffy, a young stand-up comic/temp, faces his demons when his stunning girlfriend Mel asks for a commitment and issues an ultimatum that could turn his life upside down. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

Her: "What if I told you I didn't love you any more?" Me: "I wouldn't believe you." Her: "But you wouldn't ever give up trying?" Me: "Nah. Some things you can't give up on, can you?"

Mike Gayle became the popular prince of romantic comedy overnight with his first bestselling novel My Legendary Girlfriend. With Mr Commitment he's back with a tale of the modern male that delivers its punchlines directly to the heart.

The world of aspiring stand-up comic Benjamin Dominic Duffy is shaken to its uncertain foundations when his adored girlfriend Mel revokes her previously held opinion of marriage as "an outmoded concept created by a patriarchal society to keep women in their place" and, on bent knee, proposes to him. Mel, "a living, breathing, moving version of Chrissie Hynde singing "Brass in Pocket"," is the girl of his dreams--but Duffy's dilemma is that marriage is still his worst nightmare. Dan, his best friend, flatmate and fellow bath-dodger counsels him to retain The Ways of the Bachelor, while Mel's best friend Julie--known as Nosferatu due to her bloodless dislike of all things Duffy--urges her to rebuff his increasingly desperate attempts to regain her affections. When a blissful reunion is sabotaged by domestic rites of passage through IKEA, Duffy resolves to "become a bachelor boy like Dan--a superstud of seduction, a he-who-will-never-again-come- off-worse-with-the-chicks, a righteous dude committed to anything but commitment." But when even TV's Hottest Totty media-babe Alexa Wells cannot help him become a success as a stand- up--in more ways than one--Duffy begins to wonder if he's given up all for nothing.

Gayle has an eye for the soulful romance and wry comedy in the utterly ordinary, and Mr Commitment marries heartfulness and hilarity with a yearning that stops comfortably short of the sentimental. --Rachel Holmes

Review

Praise for MR COMMITMENT

Comic...fizzy. Here comes the male Bridget Jones (Mirror)

Full of belly-laughs and painfully acute observations (Independent on Sunday)

'Something near to mid-period Woody Allen...a delicate blend of realism and whimsy...funny and clever...refreshing to find a male writer working in this genre'

Guardian

'Told in an easy, chatty style...the lighter moments in Mr Commitment say more about what's wrong with the modern twentysomething male than any amount of earnest introspection ever could'

Express

Touching and funny (Sunday Mirror)

'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus meets Men Behaving Badly'

Daily Telegraph

'Funny, sharply observed and right in tune with ageing adolescents clinging

desperately to the wreckage of their youth. This is a winner'

Yorkshire Evening Post

'Uputdownable...coloured with cool, rueful wit'

She

'Would you swap your fridge full of beer and an eclectic record collection for trips to Ikea and a series of dull dinner parties? Would you hell!'

Pick of the Week, Marie Claire

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385501005
• ISBN 13: 9780385501002
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 309