Frank Goldberg

The novel is about the education of Frank Goldberg and, in turn, his discovery that the world is more complicated than he can resolve. That acceptance of his limits marks as well his emotional redemption, his willingness as the novel ends to risk committing his emotional life to another and to experience the uncertainty of love. Approaching 50 and taking stock of his life, Frank fears, as his mother has often warned him, that his heart is hard, his emotional life empty. Over the course of the weekend, he recalls many relationships that each collapsed. He is unable to sustain a relationship, to find his way to trust. He hides behind his sense of irony, his voracious reading, and his caustic wit.

He is shaped by an adolescence spent fearing his own father’s anger and dealing with racist friends in an all-white suburban Boston school. At midlife...