A middle-aged musician attempts to catapult himself into a belated adulthood in Lewis's (Second Draft of My Life
) mildly amusing fifth novel. Tom Good, a 47-year-old San Diego-area bartender with a susceptibility to "music-induced flashbacks," is going about his usual business (eating frozen dinners, plucking gray hairs, writing songs in his closet studio and dodging responsibility and change) until he gets a startling piece of news: he might be a father. When a friend informs Good that a beautiful former girlfriend is the single mother of a boy with his "same dark hair with that cowlick over here, same mouth," Good reaches out. Diana isn't too keen on re-establishing a relationship, and her 10-year-old son, Jack, isn't wild about it, either. But Good begins to examine his life, anyway: the reasons he left his band before hitting it big (though he still gets royalties from their songs), the pain his brother's death caused him, the reasons he feels so isolated and confused. He buys a bunch of new furniture and housewares, too ("I tried to throw stuff away that looked messy or made me seem immature"), but becoming an adult just isn't that easy. Still, his good intentions mean friendly exchanges with an elderly neighbor and a growing warmth between him and the single mother of the cute but noisy brood next door. Lewis gives Good an authentic (and sometimes slightly pathetic) voice, and readers may find themselves rooting for a man who's finally realizing what it means to be one. (Dec.)
