Odd-job queen Starshine Hart is about to go on somebody else’s perfect date. At twenty-nine, the usually carefree Starshine has realized that it is easier to start sleeping with a man than to stop. Her lovers include one of the last underground members of the Weathermen, and the dilettante heir to a lawn chair magnate. Both men have staked their romantic future on her. Her only respite is her impending dinner with the non-threatening but unattractive tour guide Larry Bloom. But Larry, too, has a stake in her future. He has written a book about their impending dinner in which he fantasizes about Starshine’s life on the day he wins her heart. The Biology of Luck juxtaposes moments from Larry’s guided tour of New York City on the June day of his “dream date,” with excerpts from the novel in which he imagines Starshine’s concurrent escapades. This inventive novel-within-a-novel structure weaves a highly imaginative love story across New York’s five boroughs. Provocative, funny and keenly observed, Appel’s imagined pilgrimage through the underbelly of Gotham will establish him as a bold new voice in contemporary American fiction.
