Man and boy /

Harry Silver is in the prime of his life, on the cusp of turning 30. He's happily married to Gina, with whom he shares a four-year-old son, Pat. But Harry's world gets turned upside down when he rashly sleeps with a coworker after a tough day at work. When Gina finds out, she leaves him, flying to Japan to pursue her dream of being a translator. She leaves Pat with Harry temporarily, and suddenly Harry has to figure out how to take care of his son and make a living. With the help of his parents and the new woman in his life, Harry begins to adapt to the role of being a single parent. Harry grows closer to both his son and his own father, who has an Old World toughness that Harry has never been able to connect to. Gina soon returns to claim Pat, and Harry realizes he's not ready to give his son up. A runaway best-seller in Britain, this warm, moving novel is certain to be a hit here, too. --Kristine Huntley

The theme of this alternately wry and maudlin debut from London writer Parsons "love means knowing when to let go" won't make Love Story's mantra obsolete, but this novel shimmers with a sentimentality that could appeal widely to those who enjoyed Segal's romance classic and to their progeny. On the eve of his 30th birthday, Harry Silver blows everything by indulging in a one-night stand with a young assistant on the English TV talk show he produces. When Harry's wife, Gina, discovers his adultery, she jets off immediately to pursue job opportunities in Japan, leaving Harry in temporary custody of their adorable four-year-old son, Pat. Parsons captures the free-floating angst of a man who senses his horizons constricting and the panic of a suddenly single father confronting the issues of child care. Harry's misery is compounded by the subsequent loss of his job; his conviction that he's failed his own loving father, a WWII war hero; and the reluctance of the new woman in his life, an American waitress, to commit emotionally to him. Parsons knows how to pace his pages turn as if in a high wind and he has a flair for pushing emotional buttons, perhaps particularly those of men on the far side of 30 or singledom. Many readers will love this novel; others will decry its obvious calculation, but most will agree that Parson deals in a highly entertaining manner with personal issues of import and that, more often than not, he tells it very true. (Apr.) Forecast: This novel has ridden English bestseller lists for about half a year, with 500,000 copies sold in the U.K. alone. Will it duplicate that success here? It might. Parsons is a media celebrity in England, and British audiences familiar with or curious about his personal life (he received custody of his son after a divorce, and his father was a war hero) boosted sales there. But Sourcebooks is going all out with this title which launches its fiction imprint, Sourcebooks Landmark with a 50,000 first printing and three national tours in 20 cities, as well as 10,000 companion discussion guides. The book is also a Literary Guild Featured Alternate. Most importantly, it's the kind of novel that can soar on good word of mouth which it's going to get, and a lot of it. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

As Harry Silver approaches his 30th birthday, persistent feelings of dissatisfaction nag at him despite his blissful marriage to a beautiful woman, his adorable four-year old son, and his good living as a television producer. So why does Harry feel that a red sports car could assuage those niggling fears that life is passing him by, that missed opportunities outweigh the tranquility and stability of his present life, and that his youth is all but gone? The decision to buy the red sports car is Harry's first major mistake; the really big one is the one-night stand he has with a female associate producer, which costs him his marriage. Ranging from poignant and heartbreaking to witty and uproariously funny, Harry's adventures are a triumph of storytelling. Set in Britain, this is, however, a story with universal appeal and apropos of today's splintered relationships, with children as the innocent victims. It is delightfully narrated by Gerard Doyle, who moves easily from one gender to the other, and from child to adult seamlessly. Highly recommended for all public library audio collections. Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Parsons's first novel, a bestseller in his native England, is the unabashedly sentimental tale of a carefree husband suddenly thrust into single parenthood. Harry Silver approaches his 30th birthday with something like dread. In the grip of a severe if premature midlife crisis, he buys an expensive sports car and takes the new associate producer at The Marty Mann Show, the small-time TV talk program he produces, to bed. His loving wife Gina, a Japanese translator who gave up her own career to be a full-time mom, can forgive the first infraction, but not the second; within hours she's taken off with their four-year-old son Pat. And although Harry swears his life is nothing without Pat—especially once he gets fired—it gets a lot more complicated when Gina takes off for Japan to catch up on all her missed opportunities and gives him his wish. There follow the requisite scenes of Harry failing at cooking and cleaning, losing every telephone argument with Gina (who gets much better lines than he does), wilting under the gimlet eyes of the mothers who wait with him outside school, looking for romance with the improbably receptive Cyd Mason, and having an even more improbable job (better boss, more flexibility, part-time hours) fall into his lap. Parsons's main addition to this familiar casserole is Harry's need to come to terms with his own father, the hero he'd always longed to be—a wish that's now coming true in the saddest way imaginable. "This isn't Kramer vs. Kramer," Harry's lawyer tells him on Gina's inevitable return to England to fight for custody, but that's exactly what it is, right down to the Star Wars figures, the hard-won pieties, and the denial that the ’80s and ’90s ever happened. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll remember seeing this all before. Literary Guild alternate selection; first printing of 50,000; author tour, TV satellite tour