“Filled with moments of grace and angst, and an overwhelming sense that compassion matters.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
“You will root for this winsome, unique narrator to the very end.”
—Boston Sunday Globe
Link to CBS News Summer Reading List
I could so easily praise Michael Dahlie's debut as a shrewdly cast comedy of manners or a mesmerizing tale of how the idle rich spend their money and time, but neither description would do it justice. What kept me avidly turning the pages was a far deeper, surprisingly affecting story: the portrait of a man who can't seem to do anything right, no matter how hard he tries; someone you want to shake by his bespoke lapels yet who wins your heart and keeps you rooting for him all the way to the bitter – no, the very satisfying end.
- Julia Glass, National Book Award Winning Author of Three Junes
Michael Dahlie has written a wholly pleasurable and surprising book … a triumph of humorous restraint. He's created an unlikely but endearing hero in Arthur Camden, and we cannot help but laugh and shudder and cheer as Arthur blunders his way through his rarefied world, which Dahlie renders in sly and pitch perfect detail. It is rare to find a book that is so funny -- usually at the expense of its hapless main character -- and yet so compassionate as well
- Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Author of Madeline is Sleeping
I enjoyed the terrific wit and wisdom in this novel, which strikes me as the American version of The Fall by Camus. Dahlie writes elegantly and beautifully, which does not prevent him from dramatically delving into the raw terrain of the male psychology.
- Josip Novakovich, Author of Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust
Almost no one could be less prepared for the vicissitudes of moden upper class divorce and dating than the retiring Arthur Camden and watching him navigate these tricky waters is both touching and hilarious. A Gentleman's Guide to Graceful Living is a reader's guide to intelligent delight.
- Margot Livesey, Author of The House on Fortune Street
Michael Dahlie's unusual and wonderful new novel, A Gentleman’s Guide to Graceful Living, is a tour de force that manages to combine mellow wisdom with wicked cleverness. The tragicomic adventures of his hero show a feckless Everyman trying to do the right thing, but constantly stumbling against an unreceptive world. Dahlie is an impressive new writer who walks a fine line between compassion and irony, optimism and despair. There were moments when I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but I never wanted to stop reading this absorbing book.
- Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Author of The Writing on the Wall
A book as fine as this doesn’t come along often. “A Gentleman’s Guide to Graceful Living” is very funny, yes, but it’s also tender in a way that amounts, at last, to a kind of elegy. Arthur Camden may get into a muddle, but he is a gentleman, and graceful too. That such rare men can have faith (or at least go on being patient with the rest of us) is the hope this book holds out. That such men still exist is what it seems to propose.
- Louis B. Jones, Author of California’s Over
In Dahlie’s entertaining debut, Arthur Camden 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 men’s club founded by his great-grandfather—and declaring his steadfast love for its members. This display of emotion is only the first crack in his reputation, and a sojourn to his son’s Colorado ranch begins a retreat to the safety of the club’s restricted world, while sorting out a 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. Dahlie’s dry and understated portrayal of old 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.
- Publisher’s weekly
Things aren’t going well for Manhattanite Arthur Camden. His wife has left him for someone more interesting (she told him as much). The import-export business he inherited from his late father has gone belly up—and he knows he’s to blame. The one thing keeping him sane is his membership in the exclusive Hanover Street Fly Casters Club. But that well-heeled connection soon goes up in flames—literally. (He should have checked the chimney before starting a fire at the club’s historic Catskills lodge.) Arthur needs to reinvent himself, but where to begin? He spends some time with his son’s family in Colorado, then with a childhood friend now living in France (the latter turns out to be an inconsiderate drunk). But it takes a lively, sharp-tongued woman named Rixa (who bears an uncanny resemblance to the model on Arthur’s vitamin bottle) to recognize Arthur for the gentleman he is. Dahlie’s dark humor and light touch elevate this debut about a damaged man determined to make the best of the rest of his life.
- Booklist
