Super Host
I loved this, a fresh take on a standard story topic. Those Brits! Dry wit and self-deprecating humor feature prominently in what is essentially a midlife crisis story. Bennett Driscoll, artist who peaked early, sleeps on a futon in his studio, while he rents out his gorgeous, well-appointed home, because he can’t afford to live in it after his divorce. While his life has seemingly fallen apart, he has achieved Super Host status on Airbed, a point of pride. In the course of the story, he has three women renters (Alicia, Emma, and Kirstie) in quick succession, which highlights his loneliness and single status, but also these women unknowingly give him a smidge of inspiration. Most inspiring is his twenty-something daughter Mia, and the bartender, Claire - she becomes his unlikely rebound relationship. With the art world and upper middle class London as the backdrop this book will delight fans of Nick Hornby (Just Like You, About a Boy) and Allison Pearson (I Don’t Know How She Does It). - Carrie
A deeply funny and shrewdly observed debut novel about being lost in the very place you know by heart. Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize-nominated artist who was once a rising star. Now, at age fifty-five, his wife has left him, he hasn't sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling his work, claiming they'll have more value retrospectively...when he's dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he's forced to move into his artist's studio in the back garden and list his house on the popular vacation rental site, AirBed. A stranger now in his own home, with his daughter, Mia, off at art school, and any new relationships fizzling out at best, Bennett struggles to find purpose in his day-to-day. That all changes when three different guests--lonely American Alicia; tortured artist Emma; and cautiously optimistic divorcée Kirstie--unwittingly unlock the pieces of himself that have been lost to him for too long. Warm, witty, and utterly humane, Super Host offers a captivating portrait of middle age, relationships, and what it truly means to take a new chance at life.