An Available Man: A Novel
About this audiobook
When Edward Schuyler, a modest and bookish sixty-two-year-old science teacher, is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female attention. There are plenty of unattached women around, but a healthy, handsome, available man is a rare and desirable creature. Edward receives phone calls from widows seeking love, or at least lunch, while well-meaning friends try to set him up at dinner parties. Even an attractive married neighbor offers herself to him. The problem is that Edward doesn’t feel available. He’s still mourning his beloved wife, Bee, and prefers solitude and the familiar routine of work, gardening, and bird-watching. But then his stepchildren surprise him by placing a personal ad in the New York Review of Books on his behalf. Soon the letters flood in, and Edward is torn between his loyalty to Bee’s memory and his growing longing for connection. Gradually, reluctantly, he begins dating (“dating after death,” as one correspondent puts it), and his encounters are variously startling, comical, and sad. Just when Edward thinks he has the game figured out, a chance meeting proves that love always arrives when it’s least expected.
About the author
Hilma Wolitzer is the author of several novels, including Hearts, Ending, and Tunnel of Love. She is the recipient of Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. She has taught at the University of Iowa, New York University, and Columbia University. She lives in New York City.
Fred Sullivan is an actor and an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has played over one hundred roles as an award-winning resident actor at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island. He is resident director at Gamm Theatre and teaches acting at the Rhode Island School of Design.
