Arthur Camden's greatest talents are for packing and unpacking suitcases, making coleslaw, and second-guessing every decision in his life. When his business fails and his wife leaves him-to pursue more aggressive men-Arthur finds that he has none of the talents and finesse that everyone else seems to possess for navigating New York society.

Arthur tries to reinvigorate his life with comic and tragic results: He dates women with no interest in him, burns down his Catskills fly-fishing club, runs afoul of the law in France, and disgraces himself before family members. Just when Arthur hits the depths of despair, an eccentric suitor (a woman who happens to resemble the model on Arthur's vitamin bottles) helps him take a leap into a wonderful unknown.

Michael Dahlie's novel digs into the consciousness of a self-doubting everyman-a man who, with a little inspiration, just might become something of a brilliant success.

is a fly fisherman, devoted husband and father, and minor Manhattan socialite who would like nothing more than to avoid troubling introspection. Yet his slow botching of the family import-export business and the sudden dissolution of his marriage certainly have something to do with his bursting into tears at a meeting of the Hanover Street Fly Casters'"a declaring his steadfast love for its members. This display of emotion is only the first crack Colorado ranch begins a retreat to the safety of bevy of complex feelings he struggles to recognize, let alone process. In the balance is nothing short of his identity and self-worth, stakes that debut novelist Dahlie makes abundantly clear with light comic touches. upper-crust Manhattan is as crisp and authentic as a well-made gin and tonic; the various turns of plot are swift and precise; and one is soon rooting for Arthur to get his groove back.

A tour filled with moments of grace and angst, and an overwhelming sense that compassion matters.

You will root for this winsome, unique narrator to the very end.

Charming'.Mr. Dahlie"s debut novel takes a surprising tack. It deals quite affectionately with its central character and his frailties.

Portrait of a well-heeled wimp. When we first middle-aged New Yorker has reached his nadir. He has run the family import-export business into the ground, and his trampy wife Rebecca has fishing club, the Fly Casters, and he has his tearful breakdown in front of his fellow out. Then Arthur dates a woman called Rixa who rules to sneak in strangers. The evening is a disaster; accident-prone Arthur causes a fire and bursts into tears as the club burns down. Park Avenue apartment and enough money to sustain a work-free lifestyle. Time to escape Manhattan. He takes up the reluctantly proffered invitation of an old school friend with a nice spread in the French Alps, but Prentice Ross is no more a friend now than his erstwhile fishing alcoholic who lands Arthur in trouble with the cops; lacking the guts to deck Ross, Arthur beats a hasty retreat to Switzerland. Instead of a plot Dahlie arranges a series of scenes that humiliate Arthur without granting him self-knowledge; the point being, presumably, family reunion on Nantucket he steals his only to have its loud alarm incriminate him, a moment of primitive farce. Farce is followed by wild improbability when ex-wife Rebecca, quite drunk, pressures Arthur into meaningless sex, leading him to hope for a reconciliation. Fat an exercise in schadenfreude that is not remotely funny.

In this darkly hilarious and moving novel, a bumbling Manhattan blueblood must rebuild his life after his marriage and business fail.

Arthur Camden's greatest talents are for packing and unpacking suitcases, making coleslaw, and second-guessing every decision in his life. When his business fails and his wife leaves him-to pursue more aggressive men-Arthur finds that he has none of the talents and finesse that everyone else seems to possess for navigating New York society.

Arthur tries to reinvigorate his life with comic and tragic results: He dates women with no interest in him, burns down his Catskills fly-fishing club, runs afoul of the law in France, and disgraces himself before family members. Just when Arthur hits the depths of despair, an eccentric suitor (a woman who happens to resemble the model on Arthur's vitamin bottles) helps him take a leap into a wonderful unknown.

Michael Dahlie's novel digs into the consciousness of a self-doubting everyman-a man who, with a little inspiration, just might become something of a brilliant success.

Michael Dahlie"s fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, and Mississippi Review. He lives in New York City.