This sardonic, humorous romp is the third book of Svenson's that follows midlist fiction writer Budge Moss (last seen in Wrongful Reconciliation
). Divorced and on the verge of 60, Budge lives in a gated community on Maryland's eastern shore with wealthy widowed avid golfer Matty Klein, 80. He has just returned from nine incommunicado days of sex with his ex-wife of 26 years, and confessed all. His italicized journal entries make for a prickly counterpoint to the bemused omniscient narration, which then backs up to fill in some of the past (again with commentary), and then forward through the two's tentative reconciliation. When Matty then takes a golfing trip, Budge begins to come a little unglued. After an abortive attempt at fleeing to Canada, he speaks at a local writer's conference and gets the hots for younger New York writer Kara Umber, who then invites Budge and Matty to her cottage at Elderberry Lake, Canada. The next spring, they go, and Budge again faces temptation. The plot's pretty thin, but Svenson (a 1993 National Book Award finalist for the nonfiction Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battle
) alternates entertainingly between Budge's bitter, bawdy reflections and the smoothly knowing narrative. (Feb.)
