A Much Younger Man

by Dianne Highbridge

Book Overview

Aly, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher, embarks on an affair with her best friend's son, Tom, but since he is only half her age, they must overcome many obstacles, including tha anger of Tom's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1569471142
• ISBN13: 9781569471142
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Soho Press
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

masterly

The creative use of empty space is not confined to Japanese esthetics but is a concept put to use in, certainly, all Japanese art forms. The author of this novel, having spent eighteen years in Japan, has absorbed that lesson and produced what can only be called a powerful story, powerful in its apparent stylistic simplicity. What is left unsaid trails in the wake of what is said. Sex can be at once lusty and, well, pure enough. This novel is exceptionally fine.

poignant ... lyrical

'a much younger man' was breathtaking! i wasn't sure what to expect when i began reading this novel. sitting out on the porch, i had intended to read about a chapter at most but in the end i was turning page after page for almost one and a half hours! ms. highbridge's prose is pithy, yet haunting, ethereal. slowly and deliberately, the novel explores the complex layers of Aly and Tom's relationship - and slowly and deliberately, the reader falls in love with them and empathises with the difficulty of their predicament. Without resorting to sentimentality, Highbridge juxtaposes the simple beauty of Aly and Tom's feelings for each other against the anger and the censure of others. Highbridge doesn't try to romanticise the situation, and deals with a lot of the real problems they face in a stark and succint way. this book has some dark and sad moments, but the prose is never less than breathtaking and lyrical in its simplicity. tom is indeed, as aly describes him, 'beautiful'. perhaps he is more mature than any teenager that ever lived, but you can forgive the author this indiscretion, because Tom is so endearing, so constant in his love for aly that you just can't help loving him too, and fully understanding why aly goes through all that mess to be with him. i could not put this book down the first time i read it and have to confess that i reread it only days after finishing it the first time - it had that much of an impact on me! i have no doubt in my mind that i will read it many more times, and highly recommend it to any reader who is looking for a love story with an unconventional setting. a truly beautiful book!

A sexy,intelligent love story that rings true

I have never read such an intelligent and moving love story, and Istayed up until 3:00am to finish it. I cared about Aly from the start, andI felt Tom was something really special. He had to be, or Aly wouldn't have been attracted to him. In her (mistaken) teaching career, as she says, she's known maybe thousands of kids. There are boys his age in real life who are mature in different ways (for example, performing artists) and given his privileged background, with smart but difficult parents, there's no reason why he shouldn't be emotionally mature, and in some ways quite sophisticated. But he's not too mature or too good. He is capable of the dishonesty that kids practice on their parents, he exploits the feelings of his first younger girlfriend, he's arrogant in a very young guy's way about other people's creative work, and so on. To me, he is totally believable. I loved him, and I loved the the way this book is written. It moves along, it can be read as a romance, but it also is deceptively simple. Highbridge's descriptions of the city and nature are stunning, there's life in even the minor characters, and humour that catches you off guard. This book is not only incredibly sexy, it is thought-provoking, and to me it rings true.

Irresistible, utterly believable, and beautifully written

At the end of a dinner party, my hostess bundled me off with a copy of "A Much Younger Man", telling me that I'd likely enjoy it. Enjoy it I did -- I fairly devoured it, staying up all night to read it, unable to put it aside. I hadn't expected to feel much compassion for either of the two main characters, the 30-year-old Aly and her 16-year-old paramour Tom. Normally I have little sympathy for adults (of either sex) who become romantically entangled with teenagers. But Dianne Highbridge draws such a sensitive and compelling portrait of Aly and Tom that I found myself rooting for them, against all odds. I also found myself stopping to re-read passages that were so gracefully written, I was tempted to jot them down in my journal for the sheer pleasure of reading them again. Thanks to Dianne Highbridge for a lovely, moving, and ultimately unforgettable read.

A subtle,sensuous tale that lingers in the mind.

Starting with the provocative idea, "What if May were 16 and a male, and December were a thirty something female?" Dianne Highbridge's novel starkly shows the painfully different reactions the lovers, the lovers' friends and families, even the lovers at different times--have to this premise. What is amazing about this novel is how surely we feel at the end that these two people--no matter the differences in age,class or life experience--belong together. Highbridge lets us know just enough about Aly's damaging first marriage, and Tom's instinctive, sensitive appraisal of it, to let us see Tom as someone who will heal as well as love her. Tom's youth is not shied away from but we also get a full, many-coloured picture of traits that will only braid more strongly through time with Aly's . The writing itself is what impresses me most about this book: spare, haiku-like suggestions that hold the weight of so much more; gleams of thoughts about Tom interrupting more and more frequently to show not tell us Aly's growing awareness of him. This is how a woman is really seduced and Highbridge has the delicacy and flair to let the love between them seep into our reading. As it would in real life. The story compels, the prose is poetry--a wonderful read.