Lucky Alan & Other Stories by Jonathan Lethem, book review: Friendship in an unlikely place
The title story of Jonathan Lethem's intriguing new collection of short fiction is the bizarrely touching story of an unlikely friendship. Sigismund Blondy, a director of "minimalist spectacles", and Alan Zwelish, a software engineer, cement a bond over mid-afternoon visits to the "indifferent first-run films", discussions of "great works" by Rothko and Durrell, existential questionnaires by Frisch and mid-afternoon glasses of wine in a vividly-evoked Manhattan cityscape, with flocks of green parrots infesting its trees. Then Zwelish marries, and Blondy betrays him by making a pass at Doris, his newly-acquired 'Asian' wife.