Adrienne Brodeur Man Camp

Man Camp

Adrienne Brodeur

Ballantine, Jul 2006, $12.95

ISBN: 0812971906

Thirtyish Columbia University biology professor Lucy Stone, author of Sexual Selection: What Humans Can Learn from Animals, and her best friend actress Martha McKenna conclude that the Manhattan male is a pathetic clueless creature who is lost when it comes to courting a woman. They hypothesize that civilianization has made them so un-male; they might as well be a woman. They base this on the men they know; the former's boyfriend and the latter's brother.

Lucy is angry and frustrated with her loyal self-doubting boyfriend Adam as his timidity makes her ill. At the same time Martha opens up FirstDate, an agency dedicated to teach men that they can have a backbone and be a gentleman too at Man Camp set up on Lucy's college pal Cooper Tuckington's West Virginia farm. There men can learn to be men as they take lessons in being a real man.

This is a fun look at the gender war though at times inane. Two frustrated females decide to experiment with behavioral science by training the men in their lives to be the men in their lives. The story line is fast-paced especially when the cast leave Manhattan for MAN CAMP and never slows down though there is monster twist late in the tale. Fans will enjoy this fine contemporary education of Lucy and Martha.

Harriet Klausner