Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English

THE ARRANGEMENT

Sarah Dunn

The author cements her place as a successor of such celebrated female writers as Nora Ephron, Dorothy Parker, and Jane Austen with this new novel, a tour-de-force as accessible and entertaining as it is socially astute. THE ARRANGEMENT is at once a darkly comic story of romantic dysfunction sure to resonate with a wide readership, and a probing, perceptive satire of the joys - and consequences - of transgressing social norms.

Lucy and Owen, ambitious, thoroughly-therapized New Yorkers, have taken the plunge, trading in their crazy life in a cramped apartment for Beekman, a bucolic Hudson Valley exurb. They've got a two hundred year-old house, an autistic son obsessed with the Titanic, and 17 chickens, at last count. It's the kind of paradise where stay-at-home moms team up to cook the school's "hot lunch," dads grill grass-fed burgers, and, as Lucy observes, "chopping kale has become a certain kind of American housewife's version of chopping wood."

When friends at a wine-soaked dinner party reveal they've made their marriage open, sensible Lucy balks. There's a part of her, though - the part that worries she's become too comfortable being invisible - that's intrigued. Why not try a short marital experiment? Six months, clear ground rules, zero questions asked. When an affair with a man in the city begins to seem more enticing than the happily-ever-after she's known for the past nine years, Lucy must decide what truly makes her happy -"real life," or the "experiment?"

Sarah Dunn has worked as a senior writer for Murphy Brown and the executive story editor for Spin City. She was a co-producer for Veronica's Closet before leaving TV to write her first novel, The Big Love, which has been translated into 23 languages. She lives in New York City.

Available products
Book Published 2017-03-21 by Little Brown
Book Published 2017-03-21 by Little Brown

Comments

For couples who have ever considered having an open marriage, or relationship, or whatever — sure, go ahead, have an affair — pick up a copy of Sarah Dunn’s novel first. Because it’s possible “The Arrangement” could push couples on the fence one way or the other…..Dunn writes it all with a removed grace.

Sarah Dunn’s new novel "The Arrangement" is a humorous, sometimes light-hearted, but in-the-end poignant look at life in a small, fictional town situated on the Hudson River in New York.

Dunndisplays a rapier wit; a perfectly nuanced gift for savvy, sophisticated dialogue; and an endearing moral compass.

The New York Times has run their feature interview with Dunn and Sarah Lyall about the book, highlighting how “the quick-talking, quick-laughing Ms. Dunn talked about the joys (or not) of monogamy; the difference between the world of books and the world of television; and how her own husband is dealing with the whole thing.” Read more...

Peopleraves about the book, saying “Dunn has a keen eye for the comforts and absurdities of upscale suburban life…Sensible insights about love are the novel’s ultimate destination, but the ride is wildly entertaining,”

Sarah Dunn is very funny, that’s the first thing to say. But she is also deep, interesting and subtle. Her characters could be my friends and yet they utterly surprise me. She is so smart about life and society and the complex and contradictory ways our hearts behave.

NY Postpicks it as a “Must Read This Week,” raving, “Dunn is a bit of a genius when it comes to depicting upper-middle-class social mores, and this book will have readers snorting (yes, snorting) with laughter.” Read more...

Sarah Dunn has a terrific eye for the absurd, especially the ridiculous in everyday life…deliciously spot-on… It's an arrangement worth telling—and reading. Read more...

A smart, side-splitting exploration of contemporary attitudes toward love and commitment....not just revelatory and intriguing, but often downright hysterical.

Deliciously inventive… refreshing.