Product Description

Meet Gilbert and Moira - the strangest couple to ever marry for other people's money. New York; 1991: Gilbert Selwyn, a young man possessed of boundless charm and an allergy to employment, has devised a plan to wring a nice pile of loot from his mother's newest (and obscenely wealthy) husband. The scheme, simply put, is to get married for the gifts. But Gilbert, who's gay, needs a fiancee...Enter Moira Finch, a demonically conniving young woman whose own mother, having recently married the Duke of Dorsetshire, will contribute richly to the couple's receipts. Enter, too, Philip Cavanagh, Gilbert's longtime friend, former lover, and highly strung Best Man. And enter, finally, the Cellinis, Gilbert's huge internecine stepfamily, whose fortune has not been amassed as innocently as Gilbert first thought, and who conform rather more closely to Italian-American stereotypes than Gilbert would like to believe...As Gilbert, Moira, and Philip struggle to keep their plot under wraps, the scams get bigger and more perilous, deceit multiplies, and a wonderfully calamitous trail leads us toward what could be the wedding of the season.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #299950 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Time Out
'Keenan maintains impressive control over a wonderfully ludicrous plot… with a finale that is staggeringly, hilariously contrived.’

New York Times
‘Joe Keenan has put the ‘high’ back into high jinks... refreshingly effervescent.’

David Leavitt
‘One of the funniest writers alive.’

Customer Reviews

Gorgeous
Joe Keenan is the genius responsible for many, if not all, of the best episodes of Frasier - The Matchmaker, The Two Mrs Cranes, The Ski Lodge, Out With Dad, The Doctor Is Out... basically this guy is a master of farce construction.

And this book is in the same tradition. The plotting is extraordinary. The jokes are stunning. You know those books where the back cover says 'Laugh out loud funny' which means there is a mildly amusing bit of wordplay on page 28? Well, this book isn't like that. It genuinely is laugh out loud material, though it's more snort out loud, whoop out loud and guffaw out loud.

How would I describe the book? It's like PG Wodehouse - it has the same easy breeziness - but with more sex and drugs.

I don't normally write these review things but this book was so much fun I feel moved to stick my hand up and say, 'Hey, people, buy this, it's great.'

A fantastic comic romp!
Its wonderful that this book will be back in print again soon. It is a delicious romp and one of the few books that genuinely made me laugh out loud. A great debut novel, it shows how a gay man gets caught up in an elaborate swindle by getting married for the gifts.

The plot thickens as it is suspected that Gils stepfather is a member of a mafia family. Things go from bad to worse as the tale of lies and deceit gathers. I dare you not to secretly love Moira and her scheming ways, or the fabulous Vulpina!

Fabulous
Thank goodness this book is coming back into print - I lent my copy to someone who dropped it in the bath and then "lost" it! Hysterically funny .... the phrase "NOT THE GIFTS!" is right up there in my ranking of memorable literary phrases with "a handbag?" and "It is a truth universally acknowledged ..".