One of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Debut Novels of the Year
“A charming, well-observed debut,” (NPR) featuring a gay male graduate student who falls for his brilliant female classmate, “you’ll tear through this tale of a thoroughly modern love triangle” (Entertainment Weekly).
Exhausted by dead-end forays in the gay dating scene, surrounded constantly by friends but deeply lonely in New York City, and drifting into academic abyss, twenty-something graduate student Richard has plenty of sources of anxiety. But at the forefront is his crippling writer’s block, which threatens daily to derail his graduate funding and leave Richard poor, directionless, and desperately single.
Enter Anne: his brilliant classmate who offers to “help” Richard write his papers in exchange for his company, despite Richard’s fairly obvious sexual orientation. Still, he needs her help, and it doesn’t hurt that Anne has folded Richard into her abundant lifestyle. What begins as an initially transactional relationship blooms gradually into something more complex.
But then a one-swipe-stand with an attractive, successful lawyer named Blake becomes serious, and Richard suddenly finds himself unable to detach from Anne, entangled in her web of privilege, brilliance, and, oddly, her unabashed acceptance of Richard’s flaws. As the two relationships reach points of serious commitment, Richard soon finds himself on a romantic and existential collision course—one that brings about surprising revelations.
“Intelligent, entertaining and elegantly written” (Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.) Going Dutch is an incisive portrait of relationships in an age of digital romantic abundance, but it’s also a heartfelt and humorous exploration of love and sexuality, and a poignant meditation on the things emotionally ravenous people seek from and do to each other. “This marvelously witty take on dating in New York City and the blurry nature of desire announces Gregor as a fresh, electric new voice” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
About the Author
James Gregor holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia. He has been a writer in residence at the Villa Lena Foundation in Tuscany and a bookseller at Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. James was born and grew up in Canada. Going Dutch is his first novel.
Industry Reviews
"A directionless grad student finds himself at the center of a bisexual love triangle in debut novelist Gregor's charmingly melancholy Brooklyn rom-com. Of course . . . Richard's double life must come crashing down, which it does, spectacularly. A deeply kind novel—all three characters are rich and complicated and human—[brimming with] biting observations of modern urban life."
Kirkus Reviews
"Gregor's debut novel is a carefully observed story about desire, love, and dependence in contemporary New York. Readers will be swept up in Richard’s life and love triangle, even as they wonder if he has any idea what he wants."
Booklist
"When we look back on the canon of modern dating-while-living-in-New-York escapades, Going Dutch will stand out as a vivid portrait of a life and time that — for many — feels almost too familiar. It’s bleak out there. But at least the brunch is good."
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