Design Flaws of the Human Condition

Former lawyer Schmidtberger delivers a promising debut about love, friendship and anger-management. Iris Steegers is with Jeremy Eberle. Likewise, Ken Connelly is with Brett Manikin. After an unseemly incident on a plane flight in which Iris loses control, she is ordered to attend an anger management class and incidentally discovers that Jeremy might be carousing. Meanwhile, the day Ken's flippancy gets him fired from his proofreading job at a law firm, he finds Brett in bed with another man. The fallout from his bad day lands him next to Iris in the anger management class at Manhattan's West Side Y. What follows is a not always realistic but assuredly entertaining romp as Ken and Iris enlist each other to spy on their significant others, or ex in Ken's case. The results: a bit about what happiness really is, whether or not staying in a relationship guarantees happiness, and a whole lot about how friendships form and shape who we become. Though the narrative suffers from a surfeit of trite dialogue, Schmidtberger handles his characters with a sympathetic grace. (July)