THE RIGHT BITCH

A first novel that tells a perverse tale of modern-day romance: hardened womanizer gets snared by unexpected attachment to originally unwanted male offspring. Thritysomething Tony Schatz is a king of the downtown New York scene: A sometime writer, he makes his money driving for a car service two nights a week. The rest of the time he spends in bed with an assortment of women—his live-in mistress, 20-year-old dancer Robin; his wife, Barb, also a dancer, from whom he is separated; and his many girlfriends, who recently include the tough and seasoned Celia Persky, a high-school acquaintance/writer. Tony manages his myriad affairs by claiming an honesty that borders on misogyny. When Celia finds herself pregnant and pragmatically decides to have the child, Tony flips—only to find himself eventually giving in to heretofore unimaginable paternal instincts when the baby turns out to be a boy. Suddenly Tony becomes inexplicably unable to have sex with anyone but Celia, drawn to her nursing breast like a baby to its mom. After fighting the inevitable, he gradually finds himself settling into the security of domestic life, remarkably happy for the first time in his life. But just when he least expects it, he is betrayed—in a way he has never conceived—and is ultimately destroyed. Though occasional ``insider'' references to the art scene do not, necessarily, a ``downtown'' novel make, Shapiro manages to get us inside Tony's narcissistic head so convincingly that we are as surprised as he at his final reaction. A new and cynical twist to the transforming powers of love.