Books › Elliot Loves
Elliot Loves
First published 1990 · 96 pages
A sharp, neurotic comedy of manners that strips away the pretensions of modern romance through devastatingly witty dialogue.
What it feels like
Reading this play feels like being trapped at a dinner party with the smartest, most neurotic people you know, watching them dissect their own happiness with surgical precision. The pace is brisk and entirely dialogue-driven, crackling with the kind of barbed, cynical wit that masks deep-seated terrors of intimacy. It is a darkly comic, anxious experience that perfectly captures the claustrophobia of middle-aged romance and the toxic safety of cynical friendships. The emotional texture shifts from wry urban satire to something surprisingly raw and devastating as the characters are stripped of their defensive posturing. It will delight fans of sharp, character-driven dramas who appreciate flawed, hyper-articulate people talking themselves into and out of love.
- Mood
- anxious
- tense
- darkly comic
- claustrophobic
- Tone
- wry
- neurotic
- cynical
- sharp
- vulnerable
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- fear of intimacy · middle-aged angst · romantic self-sabotage · toxic male bonding · vulnerability
- The writing
- Sharp, rapid-fire, and entirely dialogue-driven, crackling with urban neurosis and barbed wit.
- The arc
- Moves from neurotic apprehension through a gauntlet of cynical social testing to a raw, stripped-down confrontation with vulnerability.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love neurotic, dialogue-heavy urban comedies and character studies about flawed people terrified of connection.
Content notes
- alcoholism
- sexism
- relationship anxiety
About the book
"Elliot is a bachelor in his late thirties whose new girlfriend, Joanna, is everything he ever wanted in a woman--intelligent, beautiful, warm, independent--and yet terrifies him for precisely that reason. A twice-divorced real estate broker who likes order in her life, she is equally scared of the precariousness of having someone matter to her. Their uncertainties come to ahead when Elliot takes her to a party to meet "the guys"--Bobby, who works for Playboy; Phil, a recovering alcoholic; and Larry, who "is not comfortable with a woman outside the confines of a divorce court." The encounter becomes an initiation ceremony crackling with witty, barbed, and devastating dialogue that strips the two lovers of all pretensions, forcing them to confront each other anew in a painful awareness of their vulnerability"--Back cover.
Description from Open Library.
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