|
The Object of My Affection is the debut novel of American author Stephen McCauley. It was first published in 1987, and was made into a 1998 motion picture of the same name starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd. ==Plot summary== George Mullen is a 20-something openly gay man enrolled in the English literature graduate school program at Columbia University. Although somewhat good looking, George has moderate self-esteem problems and deep commitment issues. The novel is told from his point of view. The novel opens as George begins dating Robert Joley, a handsome, 40-year-old literature professor at the college. Joley (George always refers to him by his last name) also has commitment issues, and George's relationship with him is poor. They attend a party where George meets Nina Borowski, a full-figured woman who counsels battered women and rape victims at a women's crisis center while striving for her Ph.D. in psychology. Joley tells Nina that George wants to move out, even though the men have not discussed this. Angry and hurt, George moves into Nina's Brooklyn apartment. George drops out of Columbia, and takes a job teaching kindergarten alongside Melissa, a trust-fund baby into alternative culture. George and Nina swiftly become best friends, and in time their friendship comes close to approximating romantic love. They have a mutual appreciation for junk food, and both of them are highly disorganized, somewhat lazy, and tend to hoard things. They both enjoy movies, and they impulsively take ballroom dancing lessons. Nina is dating Howard, a feminist and legal aid lawyer. The plot changes when Nina tells George that she is pregnant with Howard's child. Nina does not want to marry Howard, and asks George if he will raise the child with her. George agrees. Despite Nina's request that Howard remain unaware of the pregnancy for now, George unintentionally lets the secret out. After a few weeks, Nina begins to break up with Howard, who is devastated. Although a year has now passed since George and Joley dated, Joley contacts George and asks him to vacation at an inn in Vermont. George eagerly consents. During the trip to Vermont, Joley reveals that he did not get tenure at Columbia, and asks George to move with him to Seattle, Washington. At last, George sees Joley as more pathetic than sexually attractive or mature. At the inn, George meets Paul Schneider, a Jewish newspaper reporter in Vermont. They spend the night together, and George meets Paul's adopted Salvadoran son, Gabriel. Joley returns to New York without George, and never contacts him again. Having returned to New York City, George learns that his co-worker Melissa is dating Howard. During the Thanksgiving holiday, Paul travels to New York City to visit his mother, Molly, and spends some time with George. Molly takes a strong interest in Nina. Soon thereafter, George allows a mother going through a nasty divorce to take her son home at the end of the school day. In fact, the mother is abducting her own child, which enrages the child's father. Melissa breaks up with Howard. George is suspended from his job just before Christmas, then travels to Vermont to spend Christmas with Paul. As the vacation ends, George tells Paul about being fired, and Paul is angry that George doesn't trust him. Back in Brooklyn, Nina is upset that George is falling in love with Paul. With Molly's encouragement, she has turned her life around by getting rid of clothes and mementos she has hoarded, and has begun work again on her dissertation. George and Nina's friendship becomes rocky, and they take up ballroom dancing lessons again. Frank, George's younger brother, invites George to his wedding. But George's family is shocked to find Nina pregnant; they had told Frank's soon-to-be in-laws that George was heterosexual. George and Nina decide not to attend the wedding. They travel by train back to New York City. They stop in Providence, Rhode Island, on the way home, get a room at an inn, and make love. The act of sexual intercourse ruins George and Nina's intimate friendship, as George had long suspected it would. The book ends with an epilogue, set about six months later. George has moved to Vermont to live with Paul, and taken a job as a kindergarten teacher there. Nina has had her baby, and named the child Molly. Melissa has gone to law school, and Paul's mother has moved in with Nina to help care for Nina's child. Nina has allowed Howard back into her life, to a limited degree, so that he can see his daughter. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Object of My Affection (novel)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|