With chick lit flourishing, the hopeful but floundering subgenre of lad lit has emerged, a prime example being Gayle's novel about a 32-year-old music journalist whose marriage is threatened by the appearance of a daughter he never knew he had. After losing his job at a music magazine, Dave is persuaded to take a stab at writing an advice column in the trendy Teen Scene
and is surprised to find that not only is he being solicited by brokenhearted girls and anxious female friends for relationship advice, he's sought out by Nicola, a beautiful 13-year-old girl who claims to be his daughter. Keeping secret his deepest desire, to father a child, because his wife Izzy, editor at a glamorous women's magazine, has admitted she is not quite ready for motherhood, Dave loves the idea that he could be Nicola's father and surreptitiously commences a relationship that opens his heart to the love of this stranger-daughter. But when Izzy finally learns about Nicola, Dave realizes that he may have to choose between the love of his life and the daughter of his dreams. Gayle's sensitive and poignant male-perspective novel may not be the guy's equivalent of Kinsella or Fielding's hilarious escapades, but it will tug at the heartstrings and give female readers a peek into the male psyche. Agent, Kathleen Anderson.
(July)
