Starting Over

by Dan Wakefield

The comic national bestseller of love and loss set amid the sexual revolution of the 1970sWhen Phil Potter decides to divorce his wife, Jessica, after a few difficult years, he imagines he's in for a wild jaunt through the sexually liberated 1970s. But his new start--Phil has also left behind his job in PR for a teaching gig at a junior college--is more solitary drinking and TV dinners than raucous orgies. Even the women he does manage to connect with are equally disaffected with their own divorces or failing marriages, and Phil begins to understand the harsh, though often darkly funny, realities of starting over and searching for love the second time around.Capturing both the excitement and struggles of feminism and the sexual revolution, Starting Over depicts the pleasures and pitfalls of dating in the seventies with humor and a deep understanding of how relationships work--or, more commonly, don't work. Replete with spot-on cultural references and rendered under Wakefield's careful journalistic eye, Starting Over is a stunning reminder of the hardships of love in the modern age.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[Lawrence Block · Rating 5 out of 5]

I re-read this book in anticipation of a meeting with the author, a Facebook friend with whom I have friends and acquaintances in common. I read it the first time when it came out in paperback in 1974, loved it then, read it again sometime in the 80s, and found it held up just fine. I never saw the Burt Reynolds film, and am just as glad. The book's terrific.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book; turned into a so bad it's good movie with Burt Reynolds.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marilyn pulled her quilted bathrobe around her, holding on to it at the neck, as if protecting herself against a blast of cold wind. 'You don't want to fuck me any more. Is that it?'
Potter wished she hadn't put it so bluntly. He got up and went to the kitchen to put another ice cube in his glass. When he got back he sat down on the far end of the couch from where Marilyn was huddled up, knees drawn to her chin.
Well?' she asked.
'I wish you wouldn't put it like that.'
‘How would you put it?'
Potter took a drink, and looked down at his knees. His pants needed pressing. 'I wouldn't put it so—harshly,' he said.
'You mean honestly'
"Goddamn it,' he yelled, 'I can't help it! I wish I still wanted to. I like you. I don't want to hurt you.'
She spoke in the same calm monotone. 'Is it always like this?'
Potter closed his eyes. 'Mostly,' he said. 'Sooner or later.'

C’est bizarre et incroyable que Dan Wakefield n’était pas un auteur plus célèbre parce qu’il était vraiment un grand talent. C’est le deuxième livre de lui que j’ai lu, et je crois qu’il n’y a personne qui comprend les complications et désastres d’amour et du sexe comme lui. C’est franchement triste qu’il n’a pas reçu le reconnaissance qu’il a mérité pendant sa vie.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1978. Man thinks his life will change for the better after his divorce then reality sets in. Later came the Paramount movie.

[The Celtic Rebel (Richard) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after the movie got a lot of hype around Oscar time. I had not seen the movie but the way it was described it sounded like something I would enjoy reading. I absolutely loved the book. It was a few years later when I got to see the movie for the first time.

I was so shocked. The movie and the book are so different. I loved the book but only liked the movie basically for the performances. While the movie was a nice a romantic comedy, the book was funnier in the way it portrayed the trials and tribulations of a newly divorced man in his 30's trying to start all over the sexual revolution of the 1970s. The situations he found himself in at times were so hilarious and definitely a social commentary of the time by Dan Wakefield.

The book is excellent, and my favorite of all the books I have read by Dan Wakefield.