The Decent Proposal

Two strangers are brought together by a mysterious benefactor who offers them a chance--with conditions--to split a million dollars.

Los Angeles is the backdrop for Kemper Donovan's smart and observant first novel, The Decent Proposal, which asks, what would two people do for a million dollars? Sex is not part of this proposition. Rather, a mysterious, anonymous benefactor hires a lawyer to bring together two strangers, promising that they can split $1 million if they agree to spend at least two continuous hours with each other--engaging in substantial conversation--every week, for one year.

Richard Baumbach is a good-looking, down-on-his-luck film producer. Richard's best friend is Michaela (aka "Mike"), a hardworking literary manager. In college, they were a couple, but Mike ended their romance. Once Mike gets wind of Richard's moneymaking opportunity--the DP, as the "decent proposal" is called--the scenario suddenly frames Richard in a new light. Is Mike actually in love with Richard after all?

Elizabeth Santiago is the other half of the DP and the antithesis of Richard: she doesn't watch TV; she's not even on Facebook. On the fast track to partnership at her high-powered law firm, Elizabeth doesn't need the money. A loner who lives to work, she has forsaken her family and their devout Catholic faith. The DP offers Elizabeth a perfect opportunity to step outside her comfort zone.

A strong, omniscient narrator anchors Donovan's deconstructed, opposites-attract love story where emotional stakes deepen as the story unfolds. References to pop culture, classic literature and movies--along with snappy dialogue and well-drawn characterizations, especially in the cast of supporting players--infuse a clever plot filled with surprising twists that will keep readers entertained and in suspense. 

The Decent Proposal by Kemper Donovan

Harper, $25.95 Hardcover, 9780062391629, 320 pages

Publication Date: April 5, 2016

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read the review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (4/15/16), link HERE

This review was also published in a longer form on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (3/14/16). To read the longer form review, link HERE

It's Complicated

Have your heard the latest? Hollywood Maven Nancy Meyers has a new movie coming out at Christmas. Hooray! In case you aren't familiar with her work, Ms. Meyers is a writer-director-producer who has been at the helm of making sophisticated, lady-led romantic comedies since the eighties. She writes great roles for and about women mired in a peculiar combination of success and failure. Professionally, her protagonists are driven overachievers, but their personal lives are often a mess. Therein is the perfect quandary to set a Nancy Meyers story. Her canon of cinematic work offers a plethora of great scenes . . . Think Private Benjamin's first day in the army barracks. Career woman Diane Keaton in the I-have-no-idea-how-to-hold-a-child scene in Baby Boom. Helen Hunt attuned to Mel Gibson hearing her thoughts in What Women Want. Diane Keaton's embarrassment when Jack Nicholson accidentally spies her naked in Something's Gotta Give. And Cameron Diaz, in the throes of a broken heart, going on a carbohydrate food-shopping blitz in The Holiday. Like fine wine, Nancy Meyers, the most hopeful-romantic screenwriter in the business, grows better with age.

In the upcoming It's Complicated she's written a story about a 20-year marriage that ends because of an infamous younger woman scenario. When the husband's new relationship sours, the first wife becomes her ex-husband's mistress. See, it really is complicated. The film stars Meryl Streep as the jilted wife/lover and two men who vie for her affections--Alec Baldwin as the rotten, no-good husband and Steve Martin as Meryl's architect/potential new beau. Can hardly wait to see what memorable scenes Meyers conjures in her latest . . . too bad it's only August and not December. Be sure to take a peak at behind the scenes with the cast.