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Summary of the Novel: Meet Andre Schulman, 16, of New York City. The year is 1957. The son of a Quaker school teacher and a veterinarian who doesn’t like cats, Andre discovers his parents’ sex and marriage manual, hidden on the back of a bookshelf behind four volumes of The Yearbook of Agriculture. The discovery of this manual--the internationally famous 1926 Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Techniques by Dutch gynecologist Theodore Van De Velde--transforms Andre’s young life. Using Van de Velde’s book as his guide, Andre embarks on his romantic and sexual adventures in quest of “my own ideal marriage some day.”

“Friedman’s tone is relaxed and humorous, and Andre’s first-person narration is intelligent and engagingly self-deprecating (‘On rainy days I held only half my umbrella over me, preparing for holding the other half over Jessica”)…. Gracefully skirting the pitfalls of his well-worn subject matter, Friedman crafts a light, airy novel with charm to spare.” Publishers Weekly.

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