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THIS MAGIC MOMENT: A Love Story for People Who Want the World to Make Sense
Alternating between fictional narrative and brief essays, this humorous novel focuses on the failing romance of two worldly, contemporary Americans who stumble on a clue indicating they may have lived once before
327 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
18 people want to read
About the author
Gregg Easterbrook
22 books72 followersI was born in Buffalo, New York and have lived there plus Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Colorado, Pakistan and Washington, D.C. My wife is a State Department official, which accounts for the globe-trotting. We have three children, boys born in 1989 and 1995 and a girl born in 1990.
I’ve published three literary novels, nine nonfiction books, with a tenth nonfiction book coming September 2021. The nonfiction is all over the map – economics, theology, psychological, environmental policy. If I had my writing career to do over again, I suppose I would have focused on a single genre, which makes commercial success more likely. Then again, I’ve always written about whatever was on my mind, and feel fortunate to have had that opportunity.
I am proud of my novels, which have gotten great reviews but not otherwise been noticed by the world. I hope someday that will change. Novel #4 is completed for 2022 publication.
I have been associated with The Atlantic Monthly as a staff writer, national correspondent or contributing editor. I have also written extensively for the Washington Monthly, the New Republic, the New York Times, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times.
My quirky football-and-society column Tuesday Morning Quarterback is on hiatus after an 18-year run. I may revive TMQ in the future. Right now the Internet environment is too toxic for any form of quality writing. I have retreated to books. Which is a good place to be!
I’ve published three literary novels, nine nonfiction books, with a tenth nonfiction book coming September 2021. The nonfiction is all over the map – economics, theology, psychological, environmental policy. If I had my writing career to do over again, I suppose I would have focused on a single genre, which makes commercial success more likely. Then again, I’ve always written about whatever was on my mind, and feel fortunate to have had that opportunity.
I am proud of my novels, which have gotten great reviews but not otherwise been noticed by the world. I hope someday that will change. Novel #4 is completed for 2022 publication.
I have been associated with The Atlantic Monthly as a staff writer, national correspondent or contributing editor. I have also written extensively for the Washington Monthly, the New Republic, the New York Times, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times.
My quirky football-and-society column Tuesday Morning Quarterback is on hiatus after an 18-year run. I may revive TMQ in the future. Right now the Internet environment is too toxic for any form of quality writing. I have retreated to books. Which is a good place to be!
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 29, 2013
I sought this out as a reader of Easterbrook's football column (how else would you come to it? stuck under a book pulper?). It's conventional love story, but if you enjoy Easterbrook's football column, you'll enjoy this, because the book IS the football column. The characters and the omniscient narrator are indistinguishable from the guy who's told you for years to go for it on fourth down, wear a T-shirt and jeans in cold weather in you want to win, and patronize strip clubs instead of casinos. Like the column, you'll come for the framing device (here, the love story, not football), but wind up staying for the digressions.
The digressions are not woven into the love story, but instead driven into the proceedings like intellectual telephone poles. They consist of early examples of Easterbrook working out his now-familiar metaphysical theories: god is watching the universe unfold as we do, the logical perfection of the physical world suggests divine origination, and negativity gets you nowhere. They also bear more than a passing resemblance to the music reviews in American Psycho, and, like American Psycho, you're not sure if they're critiques, exaggerations, or tiresome yammerings. (And tiresome yammerings that advance proto-sincerity-as-lifestyle arguments that would later make millions of dollars for David Eggers.)
One critique is notably woven into the plot: Easterbrook's contempt for lawyers. This was surprising because his brother is an influential jurist and the book is protected by copyright. It seemed hypocritical to rail against the adversarial legal system that enables one to survive as writer and thinker and which brings one's family renown, but Easterbrook's favorite rhetorical device is to (stridently) adopt a position and pretend counterarguments don't exist. This works if you're right, which he very often is.
This device also appears in another leitmotif, namely that the goal of modern life is to insulate oneself from criticism by being critical of others instead of offering anything that might subject one to criticism. As anyone who has survived middle school knows, this is an essential truth of human interaction, but I thought Easterbrook was doing what he decries: criticizing others for being critical without offering a solution. (Unless I'm supposed to infer that I should stop being critical and ipso dixit I will feel better and the world will be a better place. Infuriatingly, Easterbrook is probably right.)
This featherweight novel of ideas is an enjoyable engagement with novel ideas and I'll be picking looking for Easterbrook's second novel at a pulper near me.
The digressions are not woven into the love story, but instead driven into the proceedings like intellectual telephone poles. They consist of early examples of Easterbrook working out his now-familiar metaphysical theories: god is watching the universe unfold as we do, the logical perfection of the physical world suggests divine origination, and negativity gets you nowhere. They also bear more than a passing resemblance to the music reviews in American Psycho, and, like American Psycho, you're not sure if they're critiques, exaggerations, or tiresome yammerings. (And tiresome yammerings that advance proto-sincerity-as-lifestyle arguments that would later make millions of dollars for David Eggers.)
One critique is notably woven into the plot: Easterbrook's contempt for lawyers. This was surprising because his brother is an influential jurist and the book is protected by copyright. It seemed hypocritical to rail against the adversarial legal system that enables one to survive as writer and thinker and which brings one's family renown, but Easterbrook's favorite rhetorical device is to (stridently) adopt a position and pretend counterarguments don't exist. This works if you're right, which he very often is.
This device also appears in another leitmotif, namely that the goal of modern life is to insulate oneself from criticism by being critical of others instead of offering anything that might subject one to criticism. As anyone who has survived middle school knows, this is an essential truth of human interaction, but I thought Easterbrook was doing what he decries: criticizing others for being critical without offering a solution. (Unless I'm supposed to infer that I should stop being critical and ipso dixit I will feel better and the world will be a better place. Infuriatingly, Easterbrook is probably right.)
This featherweight novel of ideas is an enjoyable engagement with novel ideas and I'll be picking looking for Easterbrook's second novel at a pulper near me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review