Tomcat in Love is a wonderful novel, laugh-out-loud funny, one of the best books Ive come across in years. My advice is that you waste no more time on this review. Put down the paper. Go out and find a copy. Now. It really is that good. Washington Post
Lust, laughs and literary mastery. New York Post
Demonically engaging narrative genius. Boston Globe
Narcissistic linguistics professor Thomas Chippering sees his life implode after his enigmatic wife Lorna Sue leaves him for a Florida business tycoon. Bent on revenge, he embarks on a series of farcical sexual escapades while obsessively stalking the happy couple. This is more than a clever black comedy, however. Trusted memories slide away and change shape as the menopausal Chippering edges closer to breakdown. Words, his talismanic stock-in-trade, constantly slither out of his grasp and betray him. No one is what they seem - his adored Lorna Sue, her sinister brother Herbie, even the treacherous Vietnam comrades who still haunt the edges of his imagination. Meanwhile, he's so busy chasing romantic ideals that he fails to notice real love when it arrives under his nose. A new departure for acclaimed war novelist O'Brien, this is a highly readable, often funny, but ultimately disturbing book. (Kirkus UK)
A surprising departure for the usually somber O'Brien (In the Lake of the Woods, 1994, etc.), this time chronicling the pratfalls of a middle-aged would-be Lothario. Looming over Thomas Chippering's marriage through much of its two decades is the malign presence of his brother-in-law, Herbie Zylstra, a man harboring a peculiarly intense interest in his own sister, Loma Sue. It's Herbie who finally fragments Tom and Loma Sue's marriage, by revealing to his sister a series of minor deceits Tom's used to assuage her suspicions of his instability. Her departure, and remarriage to a Florida millionaire, render the generally resilient Tom alternately melancholy and manic, leading him to brood on the fact that "we are all pursued by the ghosts of our own history, our lost loves, our blunders, our broken promises and grieving wives." Not unsurprisingly, this linguistics professor and (as he mentions on more than one occasion) war hero tries first, haplessly, to win back his wife and then, also unsurprisingly, decides on revenge. He can at least pay back the twisted Herbie - though of course matters quickly veer out of control. While he does manage to derail Lorna Sue's marriage temporarily, he also becomes involved with the beautiful, and decidedly self-reliant, Mrs. Kooshof, whose husband is languishing in prison. Tom's decline, meanwhile, becomes a headlong rush as he's exposed by Herbie, thrashed in front of his students by Loma Sue's husband, bereft of his job, of Mrs. Kooshof (seemingly), and briefly of his sanity. Because this is pitched as a farce, much of what happens is meant to be drolly funny and often is. But Tom is exceedingly garrulous (his first-person narrative even sports footnotes), and there are a few pratfalls too many. Still, the end is nicely paced and satisfying, the revelations about many of the characters startling and convincing. A generally successful (if dark-hued) comedy of obsessive love, too long but often ingeniously madcap. (Kirkus Reviews)
