BAR MAID

An archly comic love story with notes of farce and fable.

Meet Charlie Green, a very rich, White, Ivy League–bound 18-year-old with Holden Caulfield genes, about to fall in love with the most beautiful "light-eyed" female barmaid in Philadelphia. Set in 1987, Roberts' debut almost seems like it was written in 1987; from the title on out, the author is blithely unhampered by current ideas about privilege, sexism, ethnic stereotypes, and more. Charlie is the son of adorable Frenchman George Green, known as Jee-Jee, and Rose, his alcoholic wife, whose fairy-tale wealth comes from a barnful of old masters paintings. At first, the novel has YA overtones, as we meet Charlie working as the only skinny counselor at a camp for overweight middle schoolers. "It pain[s] [Charlie] that he [can’t] give himself…romantically" to the Very-Brown-Eyed-Counselor who has a crush on him; he is saving himself for his last night before college, during which he has elaborately planned to lose his virginity to his girlfriend. Despite following the advice of his successful older brother, John—"The shower you take before you lose your virginity is more important than the shower you take before your wedding....A new bar of Irish Spring. New razor. No cologne. Extra deodorant, but it has to be cheap. You should smell like a working man"—he'll end up sulking over pizza and headed for life-changing adventures. Every step of the way he consults John, who is, after all, a successful Wall Street "Haircut" with a Princeton degree and an amazing six-figure girlfriend named Shannon Chang. Informing Charlie that almost every pretty girl owns a futon, he explains, "They treat it like a flying carpet. They're obsessed. It's weird. They think it makes them seem more grounded, but also sexually aloft. Girls are really into their own paradoxes." Roberts' old-school, slightly surreal humor has a dash of Barthelme or Perelman.

If you're ready to abandon all political consciousness and get in the wayback machine, you'll exit smiling.