A Life in Men: A Novel

by Gina Frangello

The friendship between Mary and Nix had endured since childhood, a seemingly unbreakable bond, until the mid-1980s, when the two young women embarked on a summer vacation in Greece. It was a trip initiated by Nix, who had just learned that Mary had been diagnosed with a disease that would cut her life short and who was determined that it be the vacation of a lifetime. But by the time their visit to Greece was over, Nix had withdrawn from their friendship, and Mary had no idea why.

Three years later, Nix is dead, and Mary returns to Europe to try to understand what went wrong. In the process she meets the first of many men that she will spend time with as she travels throughout the world. Through them she experiences not only a sexual awakening but a spiritual and emotional awakening that allows her to understand how the past and the future are connected and to appreciate the freedom to live life adventurously.

434 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 4, 2014

About the author

Gina Frangello is the author of the collection Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press 2010) and the novel My Sister's Continent (Chiasmus 2006), which was selected as one of the top 10 books of that year by Las Vegas City Life and was a "Read This!" finalist for Spring 2006. For more than a decade, Gina edited the award-winning fiction literary magazine Other Voices, and in 2004 co-launched its book imprint, Other Voices Books. She is currently the Executive Editor of Other Voices Books' Chicago office. Gina is also the Fiction Editor of The Nervous Breakdown (www.thenervousbreakdown.com) and her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, recently including StoryQuarterly, Clackamas Literary Review, A Stranger Among Us: Stories of Cross Cultural Collision and Connection, Prairie Schooner, Fence, and Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader. She has been a freelance journalist and book reviewer for the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Reader.