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Summary
Summary
**Wallace named the Harper Lee Award winner for 2019 by the Alabama Writers' Forum**
**One of PopSugar's Best 2017 Spring Books for Women**
A large-hearted and optimistic novel, Extraordinary Adventures is the latest from the New York Times bestselling Daniel Wallace.
Edsel Bronfman works as a junior executive shipping clerk for an importer of Korean flatware. He lives in a seedy neighborhood and spends his free time with his spirited mother. Things happen to other people, and Bronfman knows it. Until, that is, he gets a call from operator 61217 telling him that he's won a free weekend at a beachfront condo in Destin, Florida. But there's a catch: the offer is intended for a couple, and Bronfman has only seventy-nine days to find someone to take with him.
The phone call jolts Bronfman into motion, initiating a series of truly extraordinary adventures as he sets out to find a companion for his weekend getaway. Open at last to the possibilities of life, Bronfman now believes that anything can happen. And it does.
Author Notes
Daniel Wallace was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Emory University and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studying English and philosophy. He is best known as the author of the 1998 novel, Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions. This novel became the basis for Tim Burton's film, Big Fish.
Wallace currently is a professor and lecturer in the English Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Wallace's strained new novel, 34-year-old Edsel Bronfman leads an ordinary life until the day he receives a phone call inviting him to spend a weekend in Destin, Fla., as the guest of a condo community. There's only one catch: the invitation is for two, and Bronfman, who leads a circumscribed existence (to say the least) in Birmingham, Ala., doesn't know any available women. And to make matters worse, he only has 79 days to find one before the offer expires. Improbable as it seems, that one phone call sends Bronfman's orderly existence spinning off its axis. In short order, he has his apartment broken into, is threatened by the drug dealer who lives next door, joins the YMCA, attends an art exhibit where he is asked by two women to expose himself, goes with his dotty mother to visit the motel room where he was conceived, attends the funeral of a high school friend, and, most important of all, meets Sheila McNabb, who just might be Destin-worthy (if Bronfman doesn't screw things up). Bronfman is one of those eccentric loners that one meets more often in fiction than in real life. It's difficult to invest in his adventures because it's difficult to believe in him. Wallace (Big Fish) is a master of domestic whimsy, but here his exploration of the joys of quotidian life seems disappointingly forced. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The newest from Wallace, best known for Big Fish (1998), offers a tenderhearted, likable contribution to the tradition of the Great American Chump Novel.Edsel Bronfman is a 34-year-old paper-pusher with a perfect work-attendance record and a lonely heart. The spectacularly unworldly Edsel is sitting one day as usual in his apartment in a drug-ridden Birmingham neighborhood when the phone rings, and the woman on the other end offers an all-expenses-paid trip to a beachside time-share community. The caveat is that he must bring a companion to be eligible, and Edselthough aware at least dimly that this is a mere sales come-ondecides to seize his perhaps-never-to-be-repeated chance to find romance. He has 79 days. At work the next day, he summons the nerve to speak to the odd, gregarious woman who serves as greeter/receptionist in his office building; she and he have a halting but promising chat...and then he's off and running, or off and shambling/stumbling, anyway. Before long, with the help of an accidental meet-cute (or re-meet-cute), he's dating the greeterthe lively, flighty Sheila McNabband his sweetness has put him in the way of a couple of other mild flirtations, too. The first third of the book is a bit slow, mainly because Wallace has made Edsel so staggeringly and stereotypically nave, so helplessno slate can be quite this blank. But once Edsel starts to fall for Sheila (and, sort of, also for a sturdy, kind police officer and for the damaged and vulnerable gamin-ish friend of his drug-dealing neighbor), it gains its footing and keeps it. A sweet-tempered, funny, surprisingly poignant romantic tale. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Sometimes people just need a deadline to spur them to action. For 34-year-old social-misfit Edsel Bronfman, the come-on phone call from a Florida timeshare telemarketer provides the impetus to jump-start his nonexistent love life. The saleswoman tells Edsel that he has 79 days to act on their promotion of a free weekend by the beach and that the offer is for himself and a companion not his mother, not his bowling buddy, but a romantic date. The trouble is, Edsel hasn't had one of those in 19 years. So when the flirty but flighty office receptionist willingly engages in conversation, Edsel takes this slimmest of all lifelines and clings to it with the determination of a man who desperately wants to see the ocean and definitely doesn't want to do it alone. As the kind, bumbling Edsel takes baby steps on the road to romance, he discovers aspects of his personality he never knew existed. Witty, winsome, and wise, Wallace's tale of pluck and luck is a sweet, satisfying diversion.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2017 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
EDSEL BRONFMAN has won a free weekend at a Florida beachfront condo, but there are a few strings attached. The offer is for couples only and expires in 79 days. Bronfman has never had a girlfriend. But this is the first time in his 34 years he's won anything, and the unexpected opportunity, courtesy of a promotional outfit called "Extraordinary Adventures," prompts him to step out of his safety zone and try to get to know a woman well enough to invite her on his prize weekend. Yes, there's something vaguely familiar about this premise. It sounds like the plot of any number of amusing "beach reads" or formulaic romantic comedies, but fans of Daniel Wallace ("Big Fish," "Ray in Reverse") know he doesn't use hackneyed formulas - he probably doesn't even know they exist. His new novel, "Extraordinary Adventures," is as refreshing and original as his earlier books. The story begins with the call from the telemarketer announcing Bronfman's "win." In this relatively short exchange we learn almost everything we need to know about Edsel Bronfman - not from the spoken dialogue, but from the anxious, wary and often hilarious inner monologue that accompanies every one of his human interactions. He's so painfully shy and selfconscious that he's kept his world very small. He's lived in Birmingham, Ala., all his life, but he has no male or female friends. Raised by an eccentric, outgoing and sexually careless mother (Bronfman was conceived during one of her many onenight stands), Bronfman is her opposite. He's cautious, a worrier, a "second-guesser of second-guesses." This is a guy who collects pens with business logos for fun. He's odd, sure, but there's a droll selfawareness about him that is immediately endearing. He knows that the "prize" weekend is sort of lame; it's one of those promotional deals for a time-share condominium, but his name was drawn from countless others, and for Bronfman, this is meaningful. He's never been chosen for anything before. So he agrees to the terms of the offer and sets out on what seems, at first, to be an almost impossible mission. Daniel Wallace is one of those rare, wonderful writers who make it look easy. You find yourself chortling and sometimes laughing aloud as you breeze through his novels, which makes it possible to overlook the artistry and expertise that render his characters so vivid and his plots so engaging. It's not so much what his characters experience but how they experience their world that makes them so utterly relatable and unforgettable. There's a scene in the middle of this novel in which Bronfman takes a risk with two pretty young women he meets in a bar. He asks them to offer an opinion about one of his physical characteristics, and they agree. When he drops his trousers, "time slowed to a molasses crawl. Seconds stretched to their breaking point, unquestionably the longest of Bronfman's life." (Sound creepy? It's not - Wallace manages to make this moment both comic and deeply touching.) Finally, the girls offer their opinion. "Very nice," says one; "what's not to like?" "Not a thing," says the other. My feelings about Edsel Bronfman and "Extraordinary Adventures" exactly. Very nice, indeed. ANN LEARY'S latest novel, "The Children," is being released in paperback this month.