Award-winning novelist, journalist, and playwright Rick Salutin takes us into the world of his protagonist, Max -- economist, leftist, and reluctant but incorrigible womanizer.
Max’s amorous adventures begin at the age of eight when the young Casanova finds himself running from the scene of his first crime, a surreptitious kiss on the couch with the neighbour’s daughter. For the next few decades women become participants in Max’s awkward and often hilarious journey to self-discovery -- some willing, some reluctant, some unwitting. We follow Max from the 50s to the 90s, through shifting sexual codes and practices, from Toronto to London and Paris, and, most importantly, from one woman to another. He is doomed to repeat this history until he learns from it.
Resonant with authority, experience, and self-deprecating insight, The Womanizer explores the riddles of growing up and the discovery that we understand ourselves only through others and that our most intimate moments are clues to our true selves.
From the Hardcover edition.
“Only Rick Salutin could put Harold Innis, John Maynard Keynes and Casanova together in a novel.” -- The Globe and Mail
“Rick Salutin’s latest novel is a delicately balanced cautionary tale that takes a serious look at society’s ever-changing attitudes to sexuality. It’s both lively and witty, but not as light as it might seem on first glance. . . . [A] merry romp through the last four decades . . . one seriously provocative tale.” -- Quill & Quire
“A panorama of sex and society . . . the innocent 1950s, swinging ’60s and ’70s, selfish ’80s and numb ’90s . . .” The Gazette (Montreal)
