(It's a Saturday morning in Brooklyn. Joel Miller, age twenty-eight, stands outside his locked bathroom door. Behind it are his girlfriend Lisa, a Dixie cup, and a pregnancy test. While she stalls for time, Miller is left in his hallway to wonder and wait: for the results of the test, for the pieces of his addled life to come together, for some kind of divine intervention to guide his actions when Lisa finally emerges.

Thus begins Lauren Grodstein's beguiling debut novel, a wise, wonderfully assured journey deep into the heart of the commitmentphobic male. Awaiting test results that could determine his future, Miller finds himself replaying all he has seen of love so far. There was his father Stan's awkward balancing act between doting father and failed husband, and his mother Bay's refusal to accept that Stan was never coming back. There was his playboy friend Grant's devastation upon falling for the one woman he couldn't have. And most of all, there was Miller's own prior relationship--with Blair, the aloof beauty he can't stop thinking about, the one who got away. With past and present colliding in his hallway, Miller begins to realize just how little he really knows about intimacy, love and potential fatherhood--and more important, about what he's going to do next.

Reproduction is the Flaw of Love fearlessly charts the romantic odyssey of one endearing New York bachelor, and in so doing illuminates some universal truths about family, loyalty, devotion, and love.


From the Hardcover edition.

In Lauren Grodstein's debut novel, Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love, Joel Miller spends a Saturday afternoon standing outside the bathroom door of the Brooklyn apartment he shares with his girlfriend as she takes a pregnancy test to determine their fate as parents, and ultimately as a couple. To occupy the time (both Miller's and our own), Grodstein takes us on a journey through Miller's 28 years, a trip which starts with his father's departure and his mother's madness, continues in a cheap apartment in Queens where he falls in love with a high society girl from Park Avenue, and finally culminates back in the Brooklyn bathroom. Along the way, Grodstein does a commendable job of interpreting the male perspective on grief, ecstasy, love, and eventually heartbreak over the one that got away ("And yet, while Miller is grateful for all the good things about this girl, he finds it troubling that, taken as a whole, they are usually no challenge to the memory of the girl who came before her.").

In many ways, Joel Miller is reminiscent of most modern heroes (and heroines) of contemporary fiction--he's a recent college graduate, he works for a dot com, ruminates on his failed romances, and comes from a typically dysfunctional family. When looked at from this angle, Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love is not entirely original in its scope. However, Grodstein's voice is honest, and Miller is quirky enough to basically sustain our interest throughout the novel. Even when Miller's story becomes a bit whiny, secondary characters like Stan, Miller's tragically comical father, and Grant, his investment banker best friend, add enough flavor to the mix to keep readers engaged.

Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love is a valiant debut, and readers can look forward to Grodstein's future efforts as she continues to develop her unique voice.--Gisele Toueg

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