Next Year, for Sure

After years of serial monogamy, Chris has, he assumes, finally settled down with his girlfriend, whom he dubs “Kathryn the Amazing.” Nine years into this relationship, however, Chris can’t stop thinking about a vivacious, gregarious young acquaintance, Emily. With Kathryn’s reluctant blessing, normally risk-averse Chris embarks on a relationship with Emily and tacitly encourages Kathryn to explore other relationships as well. This experiment in polyamory, however, soon highlights homebody Chris’s weaknesses, not to mention his inability to forecast the potential pitfalls of such an arrangement. A certain amount of introspection is bound to accompany decisions as life-altering as those explored here, but at times the self-reflection and second-guessing threaten to entirely halt the narrative’s forward momentum; the novel is almost entirely lacking in either humor or sexiness. The structural playfulness that characterizes many of the novel’s later chapters offers some respite, but feels tacked on when compared with earlier chapters’ more conventional storytelling. (Mar.)