PositiveSlateIt would be just as easy to come away from the novel disillusioned with women as disillusioned with men—but if you do either, you’re missing the point. Unlike Nate, Waldman is smart enough to avoid making generalizations about either sex. The main target of her gimlet eye is not men; it is the very narrow population among whom Nate (and Waldman) (and I) reside: economically privileged, liberal-minded, well-educated, mostly white writers and editors living in gentrifying Brooklyn. It is Waldman’s exquisitely detailed depiction of this very specific demographic, not her depiction of the other gender, that makes The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. a discomfitingly thrilling read ... The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is less about what happens when our genitalia bump up against each other as what happens when our genitalia bump up against our ideology.
