Dear Will: A Novel

By Karl Ackerman

Book Overview

When he finally becomes the hot shot literary agent he's always dreamed of being, life seems perfect to Will Gerard until he receives a letter from a young women who claims to be his biological... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684839539
• ISBN13: 9780684839530
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Scribner
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

6 Barracuda Stars from Start to Finish

Karl writes with such an easy intelligence and humor that his keen insight into the workings of all his beloved characters is natural and warm. I loved it from the first page to the last and would protest loudly if forced to skip through any sections as a few of the earlier reviewers advocate. Ackerman's characters are so realistically flawed and human, that I think of them as friends and find my self starting to tell `stories' about them to other people over tea. Why, I must ask, are the bookstores in the world filled with so many flat and lifeless books while Karl's are hidden treasures?? Six stars (find and read Karl's other book The Patron Saint of Unmarried Women - NOW!).

A very enjoyable book.

I liked this book a lot. Characters are always what make or break a book for me and Karl Ackerman has not failed here. The characters are very likable and fun. The relationship between Will and Teddy was great and Will's problems with Norton were very amusing. Will's musing over life in general (getting older, cell phones etc.) was so real and true. Like others, I was confused by the relationship with Annie but did not let this affect how I felt about the book in general. I gave this book 5 stars because it made me feel so good and it was worth my time and money.

Finally, a guy gets us right

A masterful and thoroughly enjoyable novel about a man meeting the pressures of middle age--demanding work, diffucult girlfriend, and the drumbeat of coming mortality--who gets boomeranged by his own history and emerges from it all intact. Across the whole story, Ackerman hits every note just right. Honest. Funny as hell. Believeable. "Dear Will" should be required reading for all 40-ish guys. I can't think of another book that paints the world of normal guys so accurately.

A truly gifted writer

Karl Ackerman is one of those writers other writers read in awe. He is funny, literate, superb at story construction and a genius at character development. I am surprised he is not far better known. Like his first novel, Dear Will is a delight. Anyone with any interest AT ALL in the publishing world (ie, anyone who is interested AT ALL in books) will find him or herself laughing on just about every page, while loving both Will and Annie.

FORTY YEAR OLDS, THIS BOOK IS A MUST

Those of us who are forty or so should read this wonderful accounting of a man who discovers one of his sexual encounters as a teen resulted in a wonderful daughter whom he just meets. This along with a storyline that is humorous which sometimes brings me to deep ponderings about my own situation in relationships, makes this book a quick read and a wonderful one. pick it up now or wait til summer, you'll enjoy this book a lot.