Willing

October 1, 2007
In Spencer's (Endless Love
) witty and perceptive latest, struggling New York writer Avery Jankowsky has a midlife crisis at 37. Weary of his hand-to-mouth existence and obsessed with never being able to afford to buy an apartment, Avery's anxiety intensifies when he discovers that his younger girlfriend, Deirdre, has been unfaithful. His Uncle Ezra offers to help him get back on track by sending him on a high-end sex tour that includes stops in Reykjavik and Oslo, and Avery gets his big idea: write a book about the experience. One fat advance later, his life would seem golden, but Avery has not reckoned with the complex personalities of the men he is traveling with nor with the long-buried conflicts within himself that come bubbling to the surface as the tour goes on. Although some of the plot isn't entirely convincing, the details from moment to moment are rich, captivating and often hilarious, and the description of Reykjavik's atmosphere dead-on. There's not enough plot for a great novel, but Avery is intensely self-aware and intoxicatingly articulate even when his feelings (and actions) are less than savory.

January 15, 2008
Titillating jacket copy about journeying into the unsavory world of international sex tourism aside, this new novel by National Book Award finalist Spencer ("A Ship Made of Paper") is more of a journey into the unsavory mind of Avery Jankowsky, freelance writer and average-guy narrator of the story. Half-crazy over ex-girlfriend Deirdre's infidelity and desperate to leave their shared apartment, Avery is on a round-the-world sex tour to take sneaky notes and write a tell-all book. The huge advance will net him the New York City apartment he covets, but he has to appear to be a willing (and randy) male member of his tour group while maintaining his objectivity and high-minded disdain for sex with high-class whores. Also still clinging to the moral high ground with Deirdre, refusing to see where things went wrong, Avery presents a face as false as the names of the women he meets in hotel rooms across Scandinavia. Packing a one-two punch of ruthless self-examination and tragicomic farce, this short novel is recommended for most fiction collections.Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton P.L., MA.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2008
Spencer writes of passion with precision and candor in fast-moving novels driven by tumultuous and perverse emotions.After A Ship Made of Paper (2003), Spencer turns satiric in this buoyantly funny yet caustic moral comedy starring a floundering New York writer. His mothers serial matrimony hasnt made it easy for Avery Jankowsky to commit to relationships, and now he may have lost his one true love. Avery sinks into the poisonous sea of cyberporn, then accepts his uncles gift of a luxury sex tour with stops in Reykjavik, Oslo, and Riga. Averys plan is to write a best-selling expos', but how to make sense of the ensuing insanity? Spencer is masterful in his fresh metaphors and arresting insights into the endless conflict between body and soul. His frank view of a trashed and corrupt world in which men and women struggle to do right is immensely moving, and his subtle alignment of our abuse of women with the pillaging of the earth deepens the resonance of this very human tale of the many faces of love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)