The Extra Man: A Novel

Meet Louis Ives: well groomed, romantic, and as captivating as an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero. Only this hero has a penchant for ladies’ clothes, and he’s lost his teaching post at Princeton’s Pretty Brook Day School after an unfortunate incident involving a colleague’s brassiere.

Meet Henry Harrison: former actor, failed but brilliant playwright, and a well-seasoned escort for New York City’s women of means. He dances alone to Ethel Merman records, second-acts operas, and performs his scrappy life with the dignity befitting a self-styled man of the world. What can this ageless Don Quixote of the Upper East Side have to offer a young gentleman such as Louis? What, indeed.

Well, the answer lies somewhere between the needs of an irascible mentor and the education of his eager apprentice . . . between cocktails on the Upper East Side and an even more intoxicating treat along the secret fringes of Times Square . . . and between friendship and longing.