“If my penis were a writer/director, it would be Woody Allen – small, neurotic, and, frankly, hit or miss.”

This book is about a struggling writer and his mid-life crisis, and begins with him having a discussion with his flaccid penis. I have to say, I liked it quite a bit more than I expected, based on all that!

“Married silence is a specific kind of silence, typically one in which the woman goes mute while the man pretends as if it’s perfectly normal that she hasn’t spoken in hours.”

Tom Violet has been struggling with his novel for years, while working a dead end job for a company that does…something. Tom’s father, Curtis Violet, has recently won the Pulitzer Prize, after years of critical acclaim for his novel. However, he’s also recently left his much, much younger wife after a series of failed relationships. So he’s a little bit living on Tom’s couch. Tom’s having relationship trouble, too — a combination of E.D. and this cute girl at work. Oh, and Tom’s mother has also been…reevaluating her relationship with his stepfather (a lovely guy).

So basically, it’s the story of three men who can’t get a grip on their love lives, with all sorts of other problems popping in — work, family, etc. It’s a very funny novel, darkly so at times, and Tom really grows on you after a while (even though he makes several very very bad decisions). This appears to be Matthew Norman’s first novel — I’m interested to see what else he puts out.