cover image Grown Men

Grown Men

S. M. Mawe. Avon Books, $22 (230pp) ISBN 978-0-380-97432-0

A pair of former tennis rivals thrash out some of the questions and conflicts of middle age on the tennis court in Mawe's predictable first novel. Successful banker Austin Sinclair and his boyhood friend Jack Winston, an attractive yet financially shaky yacht dealer, grew up together on the poor side of a small Florida town. Austin was obedient and socially awkward, the pale, tongue-tied opposite of Jack, who was dashing and darkly handsome, but the pair shared a love of tennis. At the peak of their friendship and their games, they were the top-ranked Juniors in Florida, but after high school their lives veered in opposite directions. At midlife, Austin is chafing under the burdens of a stale marriage, spoiled kids and the pressures of being an upstanding member of his community. Jack, in contrast, is paying the price for being a lifelong rebel. Rejecting college, he parlayed his natural charm and good looks into a glamorous career and, now, a passionate love for a beautiful woman, though three broken marriages and other false starts have buried him in debt and worries. Austin wishes he had taken more chances and lived closer to the edge. Jack envies his rival's wealth and stability. In the midst of their mutual ""manopausal"" restlessness and dissatisfaction, Jack runs into Austin. In vague hopes of getting a loan to keep his business afloat, Jack proposes a tennis match that, predictably, becomes a kind of psychotherapeutic show-down in which both men try to come to terms with the road not taken. Mawe attempts to fashion dual epiphanies out of a few hours of sweat, self-pity and jealousy. But nothing feels convincingly changed for either winner or loser. Readers will find their match, and this tale, more redundant than redemptive. (May)