conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled Stranger, Father, Beloved about Michael, Ryan, Nancy with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The delicate balance of family relationships, and the yearning for something more, lie at the heart of the author's debut novel. Many of the componentsboth Michael and Nancy feel restless in their marriage, and their teenage daughter Ryan is struggling with the many changes adolescence bringsfeel familiar and even a bit retro (think Updike or Cheever). At 42, Michael is lost and views almost everyone he encounters, whether old friend or new acquaintance, as a road not taken. He even traces his failing marriage back to "an awful woman from Georgia" whom he blames. When Michael becomes inexplicably fixated on a party guest named John, he hatches a plan: to replace himself in his family with John. Nancy, for her part, is similarly drawn to the turning point of their wedding, and also secretly feels that much has been lost. Ryan is oppressed by the "dreary energy of their house." She feels much closer to her longtime friend, Carol, and Carol's mom, Jill. As high school puts a wedge in the relationship of the two girls, Ryan and Jill are, strangely, bonding. Ryan's younger brother, Max, is adored by his family, and is arguably the glue that holds them together. the author makes her elements fresh with the quiet authority of her prose and the ease with which she transitions from the perspective of one main character to another. This is an intimate and involving story by a promising new voice. (July)\n
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first paragraph for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Stranger, Father, Beloved
  Embarrassed by his parents' wealth, Dave had tried to build the structure as primitively as possible, with material he could afford himself. Ultimately, he could not do it; the thing would not come together. Jill had come upon him one day, coffee in her hand, and was alarmed to find him slumped over, sitting on a log next to a mess of beams and boards. What he had built had somehow come down. When she had asked him about it, he refused to tell her what had happened. His friends Rick and Jamie, who helped him build when they had the time, had apparently left for the day. Or maybe his bad temper had driven them off. Jill would never know.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: For what seemed to him like the millionth time, he went through his daily drill of thinking what his life would be like if he had become an academic. He would have had a smaller house and would probably be unmarried. He would have had students devoted to him. He would have had tenure and the summers off to write, and dinners with his friends who had stayed on and taught. He and Alex would have had their offices next door to each other, and after an afternoon of talking with students in their private offices, they would emerge tired and walk to the campus pub and order hamburgers and beers. Their students would be sitting in booths and would have waved at their favorite professors when Michael and Alex came into the bar.
  He thought back to that rainy night in college when he and Alex had run from the library, a little after midnight, and stopped in Alex's dorm room to dry off. His own dorm room was farther away and the rain was coming down hard, so Alex's room was the logical place to go to. Earlier in the night, they had each worked on an essay, as the water had pounded the tall stained-glass walls of the beautiful old library. It being a Saturday night, the library had been almost completely empty, and the campus, too, was strangely vacant. It appeared that the world of other people had retreated completely out of view due to the rain. In Alex's single dorm room, they had taken off their shirts and pants, leaving on their underwear, and wrapped towels around their chests. Michael had sprawled out on the floor of the room after Alex threw him a pillow from the bed. The heater was on full blast, and both men had realized how tired they were.
  Alex had been different from his usual self and surprised Michael by producing a small bottle of bourbon. He had poured two small glasses and handed one to Michael, smiling. With Alex lying on his bed and Michael on the carpet with a pillow, with only the small lamp on in the corner of the room, the two had talked about their families and finally drifted to sleep, listening to the rain. He could feel the heat from the radiator warming him.
  Suddenly it occurred to him that maybe it wasn't too late to get his PhD—maybe he could still do it even though he was in his forties. But he could not imagine such a thing, could not imagine returning to grad school and sitting in the classes with young people. He saw it as too much like an admission of failure, his tail between his legs. He wouldn't try to follow another course.
  Michael popped in the video of the girls and watched the plots with attempted glee. If he was going to misbehave, he better try and enjoy it. The second one was even an office seduction that tickled him. But twenty minutes into it, as he sat Indian-style on the carpet gazing up at the screen, he could not watch anymore. The girls in the video, probably all eighteen years old or so, reminded him too much of his daughter. There was a certain look in their eyes that Ryan had—a stunned kind of look, an unsure kind of invitation, vacant heated anger. He found it disgusting for a man of his age to watch such young women. It was sick, and luckily he discovered he did not get any pleasure from seeing girls in naked vulnerable positions. In fact, the sexual acts made his stomach turn. He was a father now, and this kind of nonsense was something he had outgrown. He put in Hot Shocks and made himself another drink. The men were really going at it. The penetration between the men seemed deeper somehow.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The penetration between the men seemed deeper somehow.. The men were really going at it. He put in Hot Shocks and made himself another drink. He was a father now, and this kind of nonsense was something he had outgrown. In fact, the sexual acts made his stomach turn. It was sick, and luckily he discovered he did not get any pleasure from seeing girls in naked vulnerable positions. He found it disgusting for a man of his age to watch such young women. There was a certain look in their eyes that Ryan had—a stunned kind of look, an unsure kind of invitation, vacant heated anger. The girls in the video, probably all eighteen years old or so, reminded him too much of his daughter. But twenty minutes into it, as he sat Indian-style on the carpet gazing up at the screen, he could not watch anymore. The second one was even an office seduction that tickled him. If he was going to misbehave, he better try and enjoy it.
  Michael popped in the video of the girls and watched the plots with attempted glee. He wouldn't try to follow another course. He saw it as too much like an admission of failure, his tail between his legs. But he could not imagine such a thing, could not imagine returning to grad school and sitting in the classes with young people.
  Suddenly it occurred to him that maybe it wasn't too late to get his PhD—maybe he could still do it even though he was in his forties. He could feel the heat from the radiator warming him. With Alex lying on his bed and Michael on the carpet with a pillow, with only the small lamp on in the corner of the room, the two had talked about their families and finally drifted to sleep, listening to the rain. He had poured two small glasses and handed one to Michael, smiling.
  Alex had been different from his usual self and surprised Michael by producing a small bottle of bourbon. The heater was on full blast, and both men had realized how tired they were. Michael had sprawled out on the floor of the room after Alex threw him a pillow from the bed. In Alex's single dorm room, they had taken off their shirts and pants, leaving on their underwear, and wrapped towels around their chests. It appeared that the world of other people had retreated completely out of view due to the rain. It being a Saturday night, the library had been almost completely empty, and the campus, too, was strangely vacant. Earlier in the night, they had each worked on an essay, as the water had pounded the tall stained-glass walls of the beautiful old library. His own dorm room was farther away and the rain was coming down hard, so Alex's room was the logical place to go to.
  He thought back to that rainy night in college when he and Alex had run from the library, a little after midnight, and stopped in Alex's dorm room to dry off. Their students would be sitting in booths and would have waved at their favorite professors when Michael and Alex came into the bar. He and Alex would have had their offices next door to each other, and after an afternoon of talking with students in their private offices, they would emerge tired and walk to the campus pub and order hamburgers and beers. He would have had tenure and the summers off to write, and dinners with his friends who had stayed on and taught. He would have had students devoted to him. He would have had a smaller house and would probably be unmarried.For what seemed to him like the millionth time, he went through his daily drill of thinking what his life would be like if he had become an academic
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'Thank you to Karen Russell, Molly Antopol, and Elyssa East for your kind words and unwavering support'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Thank you to Karen Russell, Molly Antopol, and Elyssa East for your kind words and unwavering support. Thanks for always being there, Jamie Pietras, through all the long years. Thank you Eva Wylie for letting me use your image for my website, and to Dr. John Wylie for allowing me to consult with you in your area of expertise, psychiatry. Thank you to Deborah Kelley-Galin for listening to me throughout it all. Thank you, Scooter Jones, for being my writing companion.
  TAYLOR LARSEN is a graduate of Columbia University's MFA program in fiction writing. Taylor taught fiction writing at Columbia University as part of the Columbia Artist/Teachers faculty and at The Sackett Street Writers' Workshop, as well as literature courses for Pace University. is her first novel. Originally from Alexandria, Virginia, she currently resides with her husband in Brooklyn, New York.
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  Subjects: LCSH: Middle-aged men—Fiction. | Families—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Coming of Age.