Mostly Madly

by Patrick Fealey

Love and its pain. Sex and its satisfactions. The joys of both. Mostly Madly is about a young journalist who is mourning the loss of first love and the women who remedy him – at their own pleasure and peril. Tommy Risk is a man in transition, moving on from his girlfriend of five years, Jess, a cool fashion model, into a world of sex and love which revives him and enhances his understanding of women. He had treated Jess like a goddess, only to earn disdain as she attempted to shame him into someone he wasn’t. With his newfound freedom from emotional oppression, he reengages as a man who treats women the way women have taught him to treat women. Tommy quits his newspaper job and moves to the Villa Spaghetti to work on his first novel. We meet Felicia, an archaeologist who does not believe in monogamy and whom Tommy has loved since they met five years earlier. There is Justine, an aggressive feminist who Tommy suspects is intent on riding him until he can’t walk. Tommy endures a sociopathic housemate, a miserly and loveless photographer intent on destroying any joy he sees. Pam is a lifelong crush who comes back into his life 20 years after she rejected him. And Layne is a young art student who is exploring her sexuality with the force of an innocent. In the end, love heals love, and what Tommy thinks about women includes a lot of what he is not thinking about women.

185 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Born in New York City 1967. Reporter for Boston Globe. Flew with Navy Seals, got a note from Pavarotti, was told my a pulitzer winner that he had "been enjoying the flair of your writing style." Quit journalism at the age of 29. Rooming houses, welfare hotel and heroin, couches, church, manic depression, poverty. Produced 13 books. Leading avant garde writer since 1994, especially in CA. Mostly Madly is my first published novel. A once accomplished musician, I performed twice at the Newport Jazz Festival, opening for Miles Davis

Reviews

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book got sent to my bookstore by the publisher to see if we were interested in carrying it.

Entertaining at best, slightly misogynistic at its worst, it reads like a blog written by a sexually frustrated, emotionally devastated man who tries to figure himself out by trying to figure out women and I can't say if, at the book's end, he succeeds in either.

[Aimeerobottomgmail.Com · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is disturbing that so many authors, including Patrick, confuse a lack of grammatical understanding with thoughtful prose. The decision to throw away certain conventions for the sake of 'appearing intellectually empowered' is complete nonsense.

On top of that, the story is a mess. There could be more to say about it but I think some authors need to realise that you can say a lot more with a lot less waffle.

awful. 'ooo, look at me. i write in lowercase to appear avant garde.'

[Britt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patrick Fealey delivers an interesting male perspective and take on relationships and personal struggles. His main character has his flaws, he's a drunk and in what seems to be a toxic relationship. We see this story told from a women's point of view all the time, but Fealey delves into the male version of the same story. Tommy is a successful journalist with problems from excessive drinking to the most pressing problem of a women he loved but is no longer the same women he once knew.

Although it took me a while to get into the writing style of Fealey, the novel has good pacing and an extreme range of characters that will intrigue the reader to continue reading. Tommy's neighbor Paulo is weird, quirky and to some and overall "donkey" to most people he encounters, but Fealey needs that character present to balance the flow of the novel. I wouldn't mind reading more material from this author.