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Insignificant Others by Stephen McCauley5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() McCauley’s writing, as always, is suffused with wry observations about that “stuff” – wit writ small that builds, page by page, into both complex social satire and a surprisingly sentimental story. Richard is trying to mask his insecurities with obsessive gym workouts, all while juggling the demands of a resentful sister, a married friend’s reluctance to confront his own health problems, and travails at work involving both a young coworker’s emotional brinkmanship and a hostile supervisor’s discriminatory behavior: the stuff of life. That said, McCauley’s spirited sixth novel, narrated by 50-something Richard with droll insight, is about much more than sex, fidelity and unusual quasi-marital arrangements. Meanwhile, Conrad’s flings while traveling as an art consultant are getting more serious, and Richard’s involvement with a deeply closeted married man is becoming more complicated. Together for eight years, they’ve settled into a regulated domesticity, accepting ongoing infidelities with “insignificant others” but for the most part drifting along in a sort of jaded compatibility. On the surface, Conrad and Richard are everybody’s ideal of a comfortable queer couple. ![]() Simon & Schuster, 320 pages, $25 hardcover. ![]() “Insignificant Others,” by Stephen McCauley. ![]()
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