I felt no connection to the main character. She seemed utterly unbelievable to me and without any substance. Also, I found it hard to believe that 3 men in a laundromat (also wondered about the lack of laundry facilities in their well-coifed buildings) were so eager to befriend this woman and welcome her into their circle.

Despite it's flaws, there are moments of beautiful writing...which is the reason for 3 stars.

I absolutely adore reading the craftwork of female novelists. In fact, I would much rather read a novel written by a female author than a male author. I spend enough time, troubled and otherwise, looking at the world through my male mind's eye. If I am going to spend good time and money on reading a novel, I want to be taken inside a heart-wrenching,thoroughly believable female mind's eye. I want to see the world, as recorded in that novel, through the eyes,intellect,passion,and intuition of a woman. (Maybe that knowledge will help me, oh, the next time I hit a road block next to a woman on a barstool in a tavern.) And of course, within the pages of the novel, I want to find ongoing developing reasons for falling in love with a female main character. Many talented female fiction purveyors can accomplish all that for me as a male reader. But here's my dilemma...I also need that female novelist to be adept enough to get me believing all her male characters are "real." The male characters have to convince me they are going through the story with an intuitively infallible male mind's eye. In my adult lifetime as a male reader, only Joan Didion, Nani Power, and now Jami Attenberg accomplish all that. If a line was up in Vegas, I would bet on The Kept Man as Book of the Year.

Jami Attenberg is a fantastic writer, one that I'm sure we'll be hearing about a lot in the next few years. Though I tend to gravitate toward more gritty stuff, I was completely taken with The Kept Man. I usually don't care much for novels set in big cities, but this one is a winner. Beautiful writing!

THE KEPT MAN is a beautiful book about love and loss, and how people find themselves stuck and immobile. Attenberg nails modern day Brooklyn, the concept of the proxy urban family, and the art world, and sucks you right in with her stunning prose. Her narrator is compelling and wonderfully flawed and complex, and I read late into the night, unable to put the book down. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

I pre-ordered this book based on a review. I was looking forward to reading great prose and a unique story. Not. The book is written in a relaxed prose but the plot is hard to believe or respect. Jarvis Miller becomes a half widow when her famous artist husband has an accident involving an aneurysm, can of paint and a ladder. We are introduced to Jarvis Miller, wife of Martin Miller when he has been in a coma for six years. The novel then centers around how Jarvis attempts to come of of her shell of a pining half-widow. She involves herself with The Kept Man Club (three men with career wives) who meet up in a laundromat once a week. The wives bring in solid money so I never quite understood why none of them had a washer and dryer in their respective homes.
All of this takes place in New York where Jarvis works out her animosity for Martin's business partners and learns that her marriage was not what she thought it was. I don't see how she could have thought her marriage was one of fidelity when he is always involved with women and leaves her to retreat to a family cabin for months to work out his aches and pains. He never tells her when he will return or how long he will be there. Really. Jarvis tolerates it all and is thrilled when he returns. She is just grateful that he comes back. Jarvis sort of sees the light (post accident)when she discovers some photographs kept hidden by his former business partners. Unfortunately, I did not believe this party girl (her role prior to marrying Martin) was so naive and devoid of aggression. She had no problems managing the money derived from his artwork to keep herself solvent and to pay for his nursing home care.
Without giving the ending away, Jarvis makes a decision which causes anger and saddness for her in-laws. I really am not convinced why she would make that decision and did not find any real depth in her character.