One Big Bed

Imagine a sort of The Big Chill with flashbacks, and you have One Big Bed. It is the story of Martin Pepper, a lonely film critic who lives in Berkeley, Calif., and is unbearably nostalgic for his 1960s adventures. Years ago, he was dumped by Missy, his first love, and he has yet to recover from this loss, as well as from the moving on of his college roommates. The novel covers 24 hours, on July 14th, Bastille Day, when Martin and his old college friends gather for a reunion at Missy's (and her husband Spyro's) house. To make the present relationships among the characters clearer, and to show Martin's eventual surrender to his memories, Krich (author of the nonfiction Music in Every Room intersperses flashbacks throughout. The novel is also scattered with pithy aphorisms, most of which could have come from fortune cookies for intellectuals. This splicing, meant to be cinematic, makes for a diffuse narrative, but it does contain some extraordinarily witty bits. And the solution to the question of the dayIs Martin doomed to loneliness?is never in doubt. 20,000 first printing, 15,000 ad/promo. (October 27)