Crush

Calhoun’s disappointing debut novel (after the memoir Also a Poet) concerns a married writer’s newfound crush on a man she hasn’t seen in decades. The unnamed narrator, a loving mother of a teenage son, Nate, is nudged by her husband, Paul, to consider an open relationship. She kisses an old friend and finds that it doesn’t mean much to her, but after she reconnects over email with another friend, David, she develops an obsession. She puts off meeting David in person out of fear that an all-consuming romance with him would jeopardize her marriage. Meanwhile, the narrator worries about Nate, though Calhoun neglects to develop him as a character, and vaguely alludes to her accomplishments as a writer. Calhoun litters the narrative with quotes about love from authors and philosophers that fail to elevate the material (a quote from José Ortega y Gasset follows the narrator’s clunky attempt to explain her feelings for David: “When you give birth you can’t put the baby back inside you. David and I had love between us; there was no returning it to wherever it came from”). Early in the story, the narrator reveals that she failed to sell a book about the history of the crush; unfortunately, Calhoun’s novel struggles to illuminate much about her narrator’s crush or about crushes in general. This one falls flat. Agent: David Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. (Feb.)