A Regular Guy

de Mona Simpson

Tom Owens had dropped out of college to invent, right in his parents' basement, a new kind of business; it was no time to suffer any distractions, much less to legitimize the family he in fact had already started on his own. So he stayed on in the sleepy, Edenic valley town of his youth, and it was here that Owens became famously successful, his charisma and peerless business acumen also creating a seductive, if aimless, political persona. Then, suddenly, a raggedy grade-schooler turns up smack in the middle of his hectic life, claiming to be his daughter. Born in an Oregon commune, Jane has led an itinerant life with her mother, Mary, and only a vague notion of her father - a rich man, she was told. Now, years later, she finds herself becoming another of his complex relationships. There's the dependent yet unsettled Mary, with whom he eventually shares custody. And Olivia, his beautiful long-standing girlfriend, not to mention her rivals for his fleeting affection. There's Noah Kaskie, his best friend and intellectual alter ego, who craves what Owens takes for granted, ignores, sometimes flees. And, finally, the company that made his reputation is now subject to the very market forces Owens had exploited and refined. . How Jane helps transform this odd constellation into a strangely cohesive family, and how her father eventually discovers his true self, is revealed in this ambitious, often comic account of the pursuit, rewards and cost of greatness.