Genre Fiction
![Andrew Palmer - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_andrew_palmer.jpg)
The Bachelor: A Novel
A "witty and wise" (People) debut novel about love and commitment, celebrity and obsession, poetry and reality TV.
"Palmer's novel wryly tracks an earnest interrogation of art and selfhood."-The New Yorker
Reeling from a breakup with his almost fiancée, the narrator of Andrew Palmer's debut novel returns to his hometown in Iowa to house-sit for a family friend. There, a chance flick of the TV remote and a new correspondence with an old friend plunge him into unlikely twin obsessions: the reality show The Bachelor and the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet John Berryman. As his heart begins to mend, his fascination with each deepens, and somewhere along the way, representations of reality become harder and harder to distinguish from real life. Soon he finds himself corresponding with multiple love interests, participating in an ill-considered group outing, and trying to puzzle through the strange turn his life seems to have taken.
An absorbing coming-of-age tale "that marks the debut of a significant talent" (Kirkus Reviews, starred), The Bachelor approaches-with wit and grace-the high-stakes questions of an overconnected world: If salvation can no longer be found in fame, can it still be found in romantic relationships? In an era of reality TV, where does entertainment end and reality begin? And why do we, season after season, repeat the same mistakes in love and life?
"Palmer's novel wryly tracks an earnest interrogation of art and selfhood."-The New Yorker
Reeling from a breakup with his almost fiancée, the narrator of Andrew Palmer's debut novel returns to his hometown in Iowa to house-sit for a family friend. There, a chance flick of the TV remote and a new correspondence with an old friend plunge him into unlikely twin obsessions: the reality show The Bachelor and the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet John Berryman. As his heart begins to mend, his fascination with each deepens, and somewhere along the way, representations of reality become harder and harder to distinguish from real life. Soon he finds himself corresponding with multiple love interests, participating in an ill-considered group outing, and trying to puzzle through the strange turn his life seems to have taken.
An absorbing coming-of-age tale "that marks the debut of a significant talent" (Kirkus Reviews, starred), The Bachelor approaches-with wit and grace-the high-stakes questions of an overconnected world: If salvation can no longer be found in fame, can it still be found in romantic relationships? In an era of reality TV, where does entertainment end and reality begin? And why do we, season after season, repeat the same mistakes in love and life?
Editorial Reviews
1
Not long after I moved into the mostly empty house of a friend of my mother's in northwest Des Moines, near the dead end of the street I grew up on, in order to reset my life or retire quietly from it, I discovered on the satellite television service channel 665, "home of your Chicago Bulls." I started tuning in to every game. I didn't ask myself why I watched. I watched because for the two and a half hours it took for the forty-eight minutes of each game to elapse, I knew exactly how to feel: removed from myself into hope and joy when the Bulls were winning, full of almost comforting anxiety when they weren't. These automatic responses took root further back than I can remember; they're as much who I am as anything. My family never had cable when I was a kid-my parents once told me they would have gotten it but they knew if they did I'd lose my childhood to ESPN (they were right, as usual)-so the occasional Sunday afternoon NBC telecast was all I could watch of the Jordan-Pippen-era Bulls, from whom I learned everything I know about heroism. When I started watching Bulls games again at my mother's friend's house, after living without a TV for more than a decade, those distant, wide-open afternoons returned to me, and, though I would soon be a thirty-year-old man, I felt something of the annihilating sweetness of childhood. This sensation was no doubt heightened by my familiarity with the telecasters, Stacey King and Neil Funk. King had been a mediocre but enthusiastic reserve on the Bulls' first three championship teams, whose radio broadcasts, called by Funk, I used to love to listen to, lying on the bristly orange living-room carpet in front of my parents' enormous speakers, or probably enormous only in memory, whenever an especially meaningful game failed to reach our little TV screen.
And so it was strange to reencounter Funk and King allied in this new way, but before long their partnership grew to seem natural, and I came to look forward not only to watching the usual miracles of semi-choreographed human movement, but to listening to Funk, in his grating Chicago accent, ooze derision toward the Bulls' opponents ("Is it me or does something stink in this gym?"), and to King shout his silly catchphrases ("Pressure bursts pipes!"). They were terrible telecasters. Several times each game their narration of a play would be contradicted by the footage itself: "That right there is a clean block," for example, as I witnessed what was plainly a heinous mauling; or "Inbound on the baseline," as a player inbounded from the sideline; or-more than once-"Short," as a shot flew long. It was as if they and I were watching different games.
In any case, by January 2011 the Bulls were among the best teams in the NBA for the first time since Jordan left them for good in '98, an...
Not long after I moved into the mostly empty house of a friend of my mother's in northwest Des Moines, near the dead end of the street I grew up on, in order to reset my life or retire quietly from it, I discovered on the satellite television service channel 665, "home of your Chicago Bulls." I started tuning in to every game. I didn't ask myself why I watched. I watched because for the two and a half hours it took for the forty-eight minutes of each game to elapse, I knew exactly how to feel: removed from myself into hope and joy when the Bulls were winning, full of almost comforting anxiety when they weren't. These automatic responses took root further back than I can remember; they're as much who I am as anything. My family never had cable when I was a kid-my parents once told me they would have gotten it but they knew if they did I'd lose my childhood to ESPN (they were right, as usual)-so the occasional Sunday afternoon NBC telecast was all I could watch of the Jordan-Pippen-era Bulls, from whom I learned everything I know about heroism. When I started watching Bulls games again at my mother's friend's house, after living without a TV for more than a decade, those distant, wide-open afternoons returned to me, and, though I would soon be a thirty-year-old man, I felt something of the annihilating sweetness of childhood. This sensation was no doubt heightened by my familiarity with the telecasters, Stacey King and Neil Funk. King had been a mediocre but enthusiastic reserve on the Bulls' first three championship teams, whose radio broadcasts, called by Funk, I used to love to listen to, lying on the bristly orange living-room carpet in front of my parents' enormous speakers, or probably enormous only in memory, whenever an especially meaningful game failed to reach our little TV screen.
And so it was strange to reencounter Funk and King allied in this new way, but before long their partnership grew to seem natural, and I came to look forward not only to watching the usual miracles of semi-choreographed human movement, but to listening to Funk, in his grating Chicago accent, ooze derision toward the Bulls' opponents ("Is it me or does something stink in this gym?"), and to King shout his silly catchphrases ("Pressure bursts pipes!"). They were terrible telecasters. Several times each game their narration of a play would be contradicted by the footage itself: "That right there is a clean block," for example, as I witnessed what was plainly a heinous mauling; or "Inbound on the baseline," as a player inbounded from the sideline; or-more than once-"Short," as a shot flew long. It was as if they and I were watching different games.
In any case, by January 2011 the Bulls were among the best teams in the NBA for the first time since Jordan left them for good in '98, an...
Readers Top Reviews
Michelle M.Michel
“That is our 'pointed task. Love & die,” says John Berryman, the pre-eminent lovedrunk poet and the central obsession of Andrew Palmer's debut, a book that is partially about romantic love in the age of reality television. What if you're not a fame-starved Instagram model, and instead a brooding but friendly millennial type, recently void of artistic ambition? We follow the unnamed narrator for a period of several weeks as he ruminates upon his life while approaching his thirtieth birthday. (“At thirty men think reluctantly back over their lives” — Berryman). Palmer's work is full of insight and romantic mistakes, like reading the best of Andrew Martin, Ben Lerner or Elif Batuman. Palmer extracts the language of love for what it is—its hollowness! Its empty repetition! ("I've never felt this way before." "I think I'm falling for you.") It starts to indict us all. Berryman’s relationships with women, like the Bachelor’s relationships with contestants for his love, frame the protagonist’s own relationships. In an era in which reality TV can make two dozen women fall in love with one man in six weeks, where does entertainment end and reality begin? Why do we, season after season, repeat the same mistakes in love and life? Note: If you enjoy John Berryman’s work and know a little about his life you’re more likely to enjoy “The Bachelor”. Note Two: “The Bachelor” is not a romance novel but rather literary fiction. A huge thank you to @Netgalley and @HogarthBooks for the ARC.
Daritza GonzalezA
Someone recently told me - life is too short to force yourself to finish a book you don’t like. I did not finish this book.
ctljalDaritza Gon
I enjoyed this intriguing debut novel with its multiple layers and plots --
Alexandra Hardima
Palmer's debut is the the most perceptive depiction of a young man in search of love; the most perceptive analysis of reality TV, basketball, and poetry; and the funniest novel I've read in a very, very long time. What a book!
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
Not long after I moved into the mostly empty house of a friend of my mother's in northwest Des Moines, near the dead end of the street I grew up on, in order to reset my life or retire quietly from it, I discovered on the satellite television service channel 665, "home of your Chicago Bulls." I started tuning in to every game. I didn't ask myself why I watched. I watched because for the two and a half hours it took for the forty-eight minutes of each game to elapse, I knew exactly how to feel: removed from myself into hope and joy when the Bulls were winning, full of almost comforting anxiety when they weren't. These automatic responses took root further back than I can remember; they're as much who I am as anything. My family never had cable when I was a kid-my parents once told me they would have gotten it but they knew if they did I'd lose my childhood to ESPN (they were right, as usual)-so the occasional Sunday afternoon NBC telecast was all I could watch of the Jordan-Pippen-era Bulls, from whom I learned everything I know about heroism. When I started watching Bulls games again at my mother's friend's house, after living without a TV for more than a decade, those distant, wide-open afternoons returned to me, and, though I would soon be a thirty-year-old man, I felt something of the annihilating sweetness of childhood. This sensation was no doubt heightened by my familiarity with the telecasters, Stacey King and Neil Funk. King had been a mediocre but enthusiastic reserve on the Bulls' first three championship teams, whose radio broadcasts, called by Funk, I used to love to listen to, lying on the bristly orange living-room carpet in front of my parents' enormous speakers, or probably enormous only in memory, whenever an especially meaningful game failed to reach our little TV screen.
And so it was strange to reencounter Funk and King allied in this new way, but before long their partnership grew to seem natural, and I came to look forward not only to watching the usual miracles of semi-choreographed human movement, but to listening to Funk, in his grating Chicago accent, ooze derision toward the Bulls' opponents ("Is it me or does something stink in this gym?"), and to King shout his silly catchphrases ("Pressure bursts pipes!"). They were terrible telecasters. Several times each game their narration of a play would be contradicted by the footage itself: "That right there is a clean block," for example, as I witnessed what was plainly a heinous mauling; or "Inbound on the baseline," as a player inbounded from the sideline; or-more than once-"Short," as a shot flew long. It was as if they and I were watching different games.
In any case, by January 2011 the Bulls were among the best teams in the NBA for the first time since Jordan left them for good in '98, and I could root for them again with the assurance that more games than not I'd be rewarded with a brief respite from my malaise. From time to time it unnerved me, though, to see these unfamiliar men in the red and white jerseys that had loomed so large in my childhood dreamscape, and I couldn't shake the sense that these new Bulls were impostors.
Sometimes as I sat there in front of the vast flat-screen, I felt as though I'd fallen out of myself, free to watch this solitary man reclining on an overstuffed couch in a stranger's house, sinking so deep into its forest green cushions he seems on the verge of disappearing into its softness, never to be seen or heard from again. Watching myself watch my Chicago Bulls, a great sense of release coursed through me, as though my body were ridding itself of some previously undetected foreign object, something hard, jagged, and compact that had been lodged deep within me for many years. I felt wonderfully susceptible, calm, almost content. That I felt almost miserable doesn't mean that I couldn't also feel almost content. I waited for the almosts to drop away. The smallest action, the slightest change of mind or mood, just might be the door through which would enter some big definitive feeling or idea. In this way my life was full of suspense.
At first I didn't change the channel during commercials, whose strategy of tricking me into buying things via immaculately crafted thirty-second comedy skits struck me as terrifying and hilarious, a lot funnier than the skits themselves, but they soon lost their novelty and I started switching over to PBS, bow-tied antiques dealers or Peruvian birds of paradise or actors reading Andrew Jackson letters with echo effects. One early January evening I was watching the Bulls play the Toronto Raptors at the United Center in Chicago, where my father and I used to drive once a year to see a game when I was a teenager. Chris Bosh had left the Raptors the previous summer to join Wade a...
Not long after I moved into the mostly empty house of a friend of my mother's in northwest Des Moines, near the dead end of the street I grew up on, in order to reset my life or retire quietly from it, I discovered on the satellite television service channel 665, "home of your Chicago Bulls." I started tuning in to every game. I didn't ask myself why I watched. I watched because for the two and a half hours it took for the forty-eight minutes of each game to elapse, I knew exactly how to feel: removed from myself into hope and joy when the Bulls were winning, full of almost comforting anxiety when they weren't. These automatic responses took root further back than I can remember; they're as much who I am as anything. My family never had cable when I was a kid-my parents once told me they would have gotten it but they knew if they did I'd lose my childhood to ESPN (they were right, as usual)-so the occasional Sunday afternoon NBC telecast was all I could watch of the Jordan-Pippen-era Bulls, from whom I learned everything I know about heroism. When I started watching Bulls games again at my mother's friend's house, after living without a TV for more than a decade, those distant, wide-open afternoons returned to me, and, though I would soon be a thirty-year-old man, I felt something of the annihilating sweetness of childhood. This sensation was no doubt heightened by my familiarity with the telecasters, Stacey King and Neil Funk. King had been a mediocre but enthusiastic reserve on the Bulls' first three championship teams, whose radio broadcasts, called by Funk, I used to love to listen to, lying on the bristly orange living-room carpet in front of my parents' enormous speakers, or probably enormous only in memory, whenever an especially meaningful game failed to reach our little TV screen.
And so it was strange to reencounter Funk and King allied in this new way, but before long their partnership grew to seem natural, and I came to look forward not only to watching the usual miracles of semi-choreographed human movement, but to listening to Funk, in his grating Chicago accent, ooze derision toward the Bulls' opponents ("Is it me or does something stink in this gym?"), and to King shout his silly catchphrases ("Pressure bursts pipes!"). They were terrible telecasters. Several times each game their narration of a play would be contradicted by the footage itself: "That right there is a clean block," for example, as I witnessed what was plainly a heinous mauling; or "Inbound on the baseline," as a player inbounded from the sideline; or-more than once-"Short," as a shot flew long. It was as if they and I were watching different games.
In any case, by January 2011 the Bulls were among the best teams in the NBA for the first time since Jordan left them for good in '98, and I could root for them again with the assurance that more games than not I'd be rewarded with a brief respite from my malaise. From time to time it unnerved me, though, to see these unfamiliar men in the red and white jerseys that had loomed so large in my childhood dreamscape, and I couldn't shake the sense that these new Bulls were impostors.
Sometimes as I sat there in front of the vast flat-screen, I felt as though I'd fallen out of myself, free to watch this solitary man reclining on an overstuffed couch in a stranger's house, sinking so deep into its forest green cushions he seems on the verge of disappearing into its softness, never to be seen or heard from again. Watching myself watch my Chicago Bulls, a great sense of release coursed through me, as though my body were ridding itself of some previously undetected foreign object, something hard, jagged, and compact that had been lodged deep within me for many years. I felt wonderfully susceptible, calm, almost content. That I felt almost miserable doesn't mean that I couldn't also feel almost content. I waited for the almosts to drop away. The smallest action, the slightest change of mind or mood, just might be the door through which would enter some big definitive feeling or idea. In this way my life was full of suspense.
At first I didn't change the channel during commercials, whose strategy of tricking me into buying things via immaculately crafted thirty-second comedy skits struck me as terrifying and hilarious, a lot funnier than the skits themselves, but they soon lost their novelty and I started switching over to PBS, bow-tied antiques dealers or Peruvian birds of paradise or actors reading Andrew Jackson letters with echo effects. One early January evening I was watching the Bulls play the Toronto Raptors at the United Center in Chicago, where my father and I used to drive once a year to see a game when I was a teenager. Chris Bosh had left the Raptors the previous summer to join Wade a...
