"Maria Semple is a treasure." -- The Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a "coven"--like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia--and is;making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger. Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past--which she has worked so hard to bury--lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she’ll risk everything to get it. Adora Hazzard’s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, <Go Gentle< is a thrilling story of one woman’s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.

Autorentext

Maria Semple is the bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine. Her novels have been translated into forty languages. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for TV.  She lives in New York.

Klappentext

**"Maria Semple is a treasure." —Los Angeles Times

The New York Times bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.**

Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a "coven"—like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia—and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.

Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past—which she has worked so hard to bury—lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she’ll risk everything to get it.

Adora Hazzard’s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman’s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.

Leseprobe
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I slid the fried egg-extra crispy, embedded with cracked pink peppercorns-onto a nest of baby arugula centered atop a slice of toasted sourdough. I sharpened my paring knife with a few satisfying slashes and sliced four cornichons thin enough for light to pass through. Those I placed across the warm egg, chevron-style. I capped it all off with a second piece of toast, this one thick with lemon aioli.

Or: I made a fried egg sandwich.

But how you do anything is how you do everything, and one might say my life's work has been chasing the Platonic ideal.

Viv appeared wearing that day's iteration of short-shorts, baby tee and sneakers. Her alarm had gone off at six. Evidence indicated she'd devoted the past hour to awesome lashes and beachy waves.

"Good morning!" I couldn't help but sing out.

Gorgeous, shallow creature, Viv! Reliably irritable, bereft of interests. Scroller, consumer, influencee. That Fate gave me Viv as a daughter provides a daily fountain of dismay and delight.

I encased the sandwich in glass, snapped shut the lid and presented it to Viv. She looked down and back up in dawning, victimized bewilderment.

"I'm not shivving you," I pointed out. "I'm handing you your favorite sandwich."

"But . . ." she began.

"But all my friends go out to lunch? But bringing lunch from home makes me look poor? It's okay, you can say it."

Viv narrowed her eyes, swiped the sandwich and pivoted back down the hall to her room. For punctuation: ye olde door slam.

A scrape in the lock. Our dog walker, Ziggy, returning Mr. Man from his morning constitutional.

Ziggy, there's a kid: freshman at LaGuardia, he just had three pieces in the student art show. He's a dedicated runner, has a dog-walking business and in his free time is watching all of Bret Easton Ellis's movie recommendations. Added bonus, he's besotted with me.

Mr. Man, unclipped from his harness, shot past me and straight to his bowl without a hello.

"Hey, Ziggy," I said, positioning myself outside Viv's room for maximum effect. "How's photography?"

Also, as an infant, Ziggy had contracted meningitis, which resulted in progressive hearing loss. He grew up in the building and is a fan favorite. When we learned he was saving for eardrum surgery, we put up flyers in the elevator. Within a week, residents and staff had raised enough for two surgeries; we threw in one for his pal from camp. Not one to let a skill go to waste, Ziggy gets paid princely by gossip sites to lip-read clips of celebrities bad-mouthing other celebrities at awards shows.

"Or," I said, loudly enough for Viv to hear, "is photography on pause because of cross-country?"

"I can do both," Ziggy answered, hopping up and down while standing still, which is his lovestruck way.

"How do you find the time? You must never be on your phone."

"You can stop trolling me," a muffled command from within.

"Hey, Viv!" Ziggy stared at the closed door, hanging for a response. None came.

Or: maybe it's Viv he's besotted with.

Mr. Man, seeing his bowl was sans treat, returned and gave me an abject look.

"Don't you worry, Mr. Man," I said, all cute. "You'll be dead soon enough. We'll all be."

"Oh!" Ziggy said. "Seven-sixteen. I saw them talking in the elevator."

"For real?"

Ziggy poked his head into the hallway and indicated they were still there.

I whipped the dish towel over my shoulder.

At the far end of the hall, a luggage cart-the brass cage type, a remnant from when the Ansonia was New York's grandest hotel-was stacked and strung with Fairway bags.

A blonde in her twenties, who I'd seen in the trash room (sweet-faced but notably unfriendly), came out in stocking feet and hoisted a case of IPA onto one knee.

"Hi!" I called as I approached. "You're selling your apartment-"

At the sight of me, the girl became skittish as a bird.

"How did you know?" she half-gasped.

"I live down the hall, and-"

A handsome man with loose curls and strong captain-of-the-lacrosse-team vibes appeared and stood, shoulders flat against the door frame. At well over six feet, he looked down on me in more ways than one.

"Why, hello," I said, and returned to the girl. "I'd like to talk to you about buying."

"Hold on," the guy said. "Are you-"

"Matt!" the girl whispered. "No-"

"-in the coven?" A grin broke out …