The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman

A product of a post-feminist, politically-correct upbringing, Nathaniel Piven is conscientious, intellectual and successful. He is also self-absorbed, snobbish, shallow and in self-denial about most of the above. Waldman, like Jeffrey Eugenides, has no small talent for detailed character sketches, here skewering the chat of the New York literary intelligentsia and their obsessive analyses of personal relationships.

The Love Affairs works its way through the women that Nate has known, filtering their appearances, quirks and personalities through his critical viewpoint. Waldman’s irony is to bestow on Nate intellectual snobbery and a profession to prefer rational, abstract argument, while the novel focuses on the deeply personal, in which lust, guilt and emotion win over logic and objectivity. He is a character who would be far happier if he were able to think less.

This is a wonderfully capable, humorous, debut that gets under the skin of its protagonist to an uncomfortable degree. Nate is not easily likeable – he is too self-righteous and self-conscious for that – yet you cannot help but wince in recognition or nod in sympathy. Waldman pokes fun at the human tendency to pretend that we're caring, superior members of society when really, we're all creatures of self-obsession. [Alice Sinclair]