My partner’s brother once found himself accidentally locked into his flat on Christmas Day, which meant having to spend it alone with his dog — an outcome he may shortly have cause to recall with no little longing, given that we’ve decided to host this year.
At least we haven’t sneakily invited his ex along too. That’s the curveball flung at one of the characters in Benjamin Markovits’s new novel, the latest in his unashamedly old-fashioned and vastly enjoyable quartet-in-progress about a high-flying, Obama-era American family modelled, as you might guess, on his own.
In the first part, A Weekend in New York, the parents and siblings of journeyman tennis pro Paul Essinger gathered to watch him compete in the first round of the US Open. Now it’s 2012 — two years on — and Paul has left not only the sport but also his girlfriend, Dana, and their four-year-old son, Cal, quitting Brooklyn to live near his parents in Texas.
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