New Life of Hugo Gardner

<b>Beloved author Louis Begley returns to the monied halls of the Upper East Side with a sharp new comedy of manners. Divorced after decades of comfortable marriage retired journalist Hugo Gardner sets out to explore paths not travelled.</b> <p/>After four decades of what he believes to be a happy healthy partnership Hugo Gardner's world is overturned when he learns that his wife Valerie is not only requesting a divorce but has left him for a younger more vital man. Hugo an octogenarian political writer and retired journalist for <i>Time</i> must rethink the way he's lived and reassess how he'd like to spend his remaining years.<br> Reconsidering past relationships in his mind with years of distance Hugo begins to see things in a new light: Valerie whose youth and ambition eventually came between them; his children whose support might be more financially than emotionally motivated; and his friends who like him are rapidly aging before his very eyes. With an ominous oncologist's report hanging over his head Hugo decides to get away for a bit to a conference in Paris. There a new romance blooms and Hugo finds himself wondering if growing old in Paris might be the perfect antidote to the drama he left behind in New York. <br> Unflinching witty and urbane as ever Louis Begley delivers a spot-on satire of the world of New York's aging elite and uncovers the unexpected delights a late-in-life change can offer.