Let Me Try Again (a novel) Out Now
A Romantic Tragicomedy of Faith, Family, and Folly by debut author, Matthew Davis
Arcade is happy to announce the publication of LET ME TRY AGAIN by Matthew Davis. We are extremely excited for this book to be shared and read by you, our readers. In his humorous, yet poignant novel, Davis proves from the very first pages that he is not just a novelist but a stylistic genius. As Bruce Wagner writes, Davis is “a real writer in unreal times.”
Read below for a synopsis, author biography, reviews and scheduled events. Order your copy of Let Me Try Again.
All the best. Please read Arcade.
“A total tour de force. Voice of a generation mode. Beyond irony and sincerity, it's just real. Sweet, silly, sensitive, smart. :3”—HONOR LEVY, author of My First Book
A Romantic Tragicomedy of Faith, Family, and Folly
Ross, twenty-three, isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks he is. His brilliant idea to break up with his girlfriend, Lora Liamant, in an attempt to show her how terrible other men are and how empty life would be without him, has backfired spectacularly. Within weeks, he discovers she’s moved on with the brother of a famous network TV actor. In the midst of his heartbreak, Ross’s parents die tragically—in a helicopter crash at an all-inclusive resort in Turks and Caicos—leaving him with millions of dollars and custody over his teenage sister.
Traumatized, ruminating, and rich, Ross plots scheme after scheme to show Lora he’s changed into a responsible adult, even as she shows no indication of wanting that. Everything he does seems to make matters worse, as his misguided mission of self-transformation only leads to Lora’s confusion and dismay.
Let Me Try Again is an electric picaresque charting a young Jewish man’s spiral of neurotic pride and self-improvement within a culture that only caters to his worst impulses. Brimming with vitality and crackling with wit, Matthew Davis’s dynamic debut illuminates the absurdities of twenty-first-century life with ecstatic flair.
Matthew Davis is a software engineer whose work has been published in The Verge, Hobart, Forever Magazine, and Heavy Traffic, among other publications. He lives in New York City.
“Let me be objective: Matthew Davis has studied the blade. If comedy makes you laugh, you will find this book incessantly hilarious. . . . It may surprise you that the book is an earnestly moral self-reckoning with masculinity, with influences, with faith, erudite beyond Davis’s years, examining things like the role of ethics in dismantling utilitarianism and finance without forgetting to be funny.”
—Manuel Marrero, Expat Press
Matthew Davis presents Let Me Try Again, in conversation with Adam Friedland
Wednesday
August 14th
6:30pm
McNally Jackson Seaport 4 Fulton St. New York, NY
RSVP Required
“Matthew Davis has a distinct, charming and compelling voice—funny, original, contemporary and clear, with sprinkles of Bret Easton Ellis, Philip Roth, and even Helen DeWitt.”—SHEILA HETI, New York Times bestselling author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?
“Matthew Davis is that startling anomaly: a real writer in unreal times.”—BRUCE WAGNER, author of Dead Stars and Roar: American Master
“Matthew Davis's singular voice gripped me from the first page and didn't let go. I adored this off-kilter, hilarious, and surprisingly vulnerable novel.”—ANNA DORN, author of Perfume and Pain
“Genuinely funny and subversive in the blasphemous spirit of Roth. Matthew Davis has created a truly diabolical protagonist.”—LEXI FREIMAN, author of The Book of Ayn
“I highly enjoyed this darkly comical, compulsively readable novel about love and obsession. Woody Allen-esque.”—TAO LIN, author of Leave Society and Taipei
“A total tour de force. Voice of a generation mode. Beyond irony and sincerity, it's just real. Sweet, silly, sensitive, smart. :3”—HONOR LEVY, author of My First Book