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The Easy Way Out
The Easy Way Out
Author: Stephen McCauley
Patrick O'Neil is a travel agent who never goes anywhere. His closestconfidante, Sharon, is chain-smoking her way to singles hell, passing up manafter man. His parents, proprietors of a suburban men's store whose fortunesare sagging more visibly than its customers, can't agree how best to interferein their sons' lives. And his lover, Arthur (a n...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780671708184
ISBN-10: 067170818X
Publication Date: 6/1992
Pages: 298
Rating:
  • Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
 3

3.3 stars, based on 3 ratings
Publisher: Simon Schuster
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed The Easy Way Out on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Fantastic book. The characters were so well fleshed out. I identified with every single one of them.
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fencerchica avatar reviewed The Easy Way Out on + 47 more book reviews
Like its narrator Patrick, this novel shields its warm heart behind wisecracking ascerbic sarcasm. With bittersweet hilarity, it looks at how different people cope with roads taken (or not taken) in life and love.

Completely by accident, Patrick's stumbled into what anyone else would probably call a perfect relationship and life. But despite feeling genuine affection for his kind, decent, and profoundly boring boyfriend Arthur, Patrick can't shake a guilty feeling of total panic at the placid path he's finding himself more and more deeply sinking into.

Patrick's actually a pretty lazy guy who more readily invests energy in sardonic quips than in actually shaking things up in his life. Besides, even when he's feeling suffocated, he realizes he's undeservedly lucky to have what he does. So maybe nothing would've changed, even when Arthur calmly decides they should buy a house together and doggedly begins marching them towards that goal.

But then Tony, Patrick's dumpy, drearily conventional kid brother, falls desperately in love. And not with the sad-puppy fiancee that their overbearing parents had picked out for him, but with a sophisticated beauty who lights a fire beneath him to clean up his slovenly ways and broaden his previously unimaginative mind. As Tony frantically demands his older brother's advice, Patrick sees his own life flashing before his eyes, mirrored in the life choice his brother's shakily facing down. He can't fend it all off with wiseass humor forever...
NJMary63 avatar reviewed The Easy Way Out on + 21 more book reviews
This was my first book by this author. I liked his style of writing. The book had me laughing out loud at times. It's the story of a slightly dysfunctional family. Tony is engaged to marry his high school sweetheart when he meets Vivian. He turns to his gay brother, Patrick, for guidance. Patrick is the only one telling him to follow his heart. Meanwhile, Patrick has problems of his own with his relationship.


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