Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

Steve Kluger's new novel, Almost Like Being in Love, is, well, almost like... no, it's not. But it's an awfully great read. The story is deceptively simple: at a boarding school in 1978, at the end of their senior years, a jock and a nerd fall in love. They share three months of bliss, and then commence higher education on opposite coasts, drifting apart thus. 20 years later, the nerd, now a professor on the west coast, realizes he's still in love with his first love, and decides to track him down. Almost is laugh-out-loud funny, while at the same time managing to pull of the dance of being touching and affecting as well. These are entirely believable characters Kluger's drawn; it's one for the true romantic in all (some?) of us. Definitely recommended. A