Town House (P.S. Series) by Tish Cohen

From the Publisher

Jack Madigan is, by many accounts, blessed. He can still effortlessly turn a pretty head. And thanks to his legendary rock star father, he lives an enviable existence in a once-glorious, now-crumbling Boston town house with his teenage son, Harlan. But there is one tiny drawback: Jack is an agoraphobe. As long as his dad's admittedly dwindling royalties keep rolling in, Jack's condition isn't a problem. But then the money runs out . . . and all hell breaks loose.

The bank is foreclosing. Jack's ex is threatening to take Harlan to California. And Lucinda, the little girl next door, won't stay out of his kitchen . . . or his life. To save his sanity, Jack's path is clear, albeit impossible—he must outwit the bank's adorably determined real estate agent, win back his house, keep his son at home, and, finally, with Lucinda's help, find a way back to the world outside his door.

Publishers Weekly

An agoraphobe fights to save his house, his son and his sanity in Cohen's comic, big screen–ready debut. Jack Madigan has sequestered himself for most of his adult life in a decaying Boston townhouse along with his so-uncool-he's-cool son, Harlan; a one-eyed, one-eared cat; and, until she left, his wife Penelope. Jack is content to pursue his raison d'être of creating the perfect shade of white interior paint, but the outside world comes crashing in: Jack's income—royalties from dead rock star dad Baz (think: Ozzy Osbourne cut down in his prime by a snapping turtle)—dries up; Penelope wants Harlan to move to L.A. and live with her; the plucky, precocious, ankle-biting (really) girl next door keeps showing up in Jack's house; and Dorrie, a lovable dingbat realtor, swoops in to sell the townhouse (valued at $4.5 mil). Love blossoms, neuroses are zapped and an 11th-hour discovery saves the day. If it sounds formulaic, it is, but it's also terrifically written; Cohen's affinity for her nut-job characters is infectious and will keep readers involved as the plot reaches its peachy end. (May)

Charli OsborneCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal

Adult/High School
What do an agoraphobe, a teenager determined to be as geekily unfashionable as possible, a little girl who acts like a dog, and a disheveled real-estate agent have in common? The answer is a crumbling town house, formerly owned by a rock star who was killed by a turtle. Like a hyperactive child jacked up on sugar, the novel introduces characters, wanders off on tangents, and still manages to be genuinely amusing. Jack Madigan, Baz's son, now owns the building, which has gone into foreclosure due to lack of funds. His next-door neighbors' daughter, Lucinda, is an intelligent and neglected child who latches on to Jack, despite his inability to step outside his door without "Nervy Durvies," as Harlan, his teenage son, calls his meds. Dorrie, the realtor, is determined to make her first sale on the historic Boston property despite Jack's refusal to repair the holes in the walls left by his father. Cohen pulls off her first novel for adults with style and verve. Even the secondary characters shine in their peripheral roles. Teens will love this book or hate it-there's really no middle ground. Advise those with the right ear to read while listening to the 117 Battersea Road Playlist, included in the end materials, and rock on.

Details from Seller

• ISBN: 0061131318
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Pub. Date: May 2007
• Condition:

Comments from the Seller: 2007-05-08 Very Good Tight Spine. Good condition overall. Clean pages.

• Read a Sample Chapter

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

He Bangs

Jack Madigan squeezed his eyes shut. Hard. He wasn't going to cry over this. There were exactly three events in his thirty-six-year-old memory that had brought him to tears, typically life-splintering events: such as his father dying on him while he was away at a sleepover; his son, Harlan, bursting—squalling and bawling—out of the womb and into his heart; and his ex-wife sashaying out the front door of the old Boston town house and wishing Jack a good life.

She'd forgotten the tweezers.

Sucking back a fortifying breath, Jack trapped another hair between the pincers and yanked. Shit! Tears streamed down his cheeks. He wiped his face with his palm and peered into the mirror. His brows looked worse than before he started. The left brow ended way too early and the right one bulged in the middle like a python digesting a mole. The photo in the magazine sure didn't look like this. Checking the instructions again, he ripped away at the right brow until the gastric-wrapped mole looked more like a supine mouse.

Leaning on the huge porcelain bathroom sink, he pushed his face closer to the mirror. Eyebrow hairs probably grew back slowly. It would be his luck. If they grew back at all. He tugged at his dark hair until wet bangs carpeted his forehead, masking what was left of his brows. Looked a bit strange, but it would have to do. Eyebrows stinging, stomach grumbling, he reached down to tighten the towel tied around his narrow hips before hurling the tweezers and the magazine at the metal trash can.

He hadn't set out to pluck his brows this particularWednesday evening in November. It was all Harlan's fault.

Teenage hormones being what they were, Harlan's eyes were foolishly affixed to a blonde on a passing bus when they should have been doing what eyes were designed for—scanning oncoming terrain for hazards, like uncovered manholes and wolves. And while it wasn't a manhole or a wolf that got him, the puddle was, apparently, sufficiently deep and murky as to necessitate a thorough cleanup once Harlan finally found his way home.

And teenage hormones being what they were, Harlan's shower went on far too long. So long that his friends—Stevie, Kirk, and three girls with wholly forgettable names, having stopped by to pick him up for a night of unintelligible conversation and untold attempts to sneak into local bars—were forced to choose between polite chat with Jack in the living room and a Glamour magazine fortuitously pulled from someone's purse.

The magazine won.

Jack never would have dreamed of flipping through it after Courtney or Brittany or whoever left it behind. For one thing, it was nearly seven thirty, and he hadn't yet had dinner. For another, a guy his age trolling through Glamour was just plain creepy. But it was just lying there on his favorite chair, folded open to an article titled "Five Surefire Signs He'll Suck in Bed."

How could he not check . . . just to be sure?

And there it was. Surefire sign number four. "Scraggle Brows. A guy who doesn't clean his house upstairs won't be keen on polishing your silver downstairs, so to speak."

If there was one thing Jack wasn't going to be accused of, it was having a complete and utter disregard for tending to the silver.

Peering into the old Frigidaire, head bopping to the Clash's "London Calling" thundering from the living room, Jack smiled. One heaping helping of Monday's tuna casserole had somehow escaped Harlan's wolfish eye.

The sun had all but set, leaving blackened, cut-out profiles of nineteenth-century Beacon Hill town homes nestled up to office towers against a sky muddy with navy, purple, and red. Jack spun away from the fridge, chipped plate in hand, and kicked the door shut with his foot. Harlan would be out for hours. And by the time he returned, he'd have murdered a pizza or several, and would have no interest in digging up two-day-old leftovers.

By the time the sky had completely inked over, candlelight danced on the refrigerator door, Pinot breathed in a chipped scotch glass, Elvis Costello crooned from the front room, and Jack's perfectly heated leftovers begged to be devoured. He sampled the first bite and closed his eyes. Impossible. The casserole got more delectable by the day.

When he opened his eyes, another set of eyes stared back at him. Well, one eye, anyway. Mrs. Brady, Harlan's childhood pet—a morose, one-eared, one-eyed beast of a tomcat acquired during Harlan's fifth year—sat on the opposite chair.

Like Jack's date.

The animal stared at Jack's forehead. Sadly aware he was primping for a cat, Jack smoothed his bangs. "What are you looking at?"

Mrs. Brady blinked back what appeared to be a smirk.

"Like you're so much better? Get down, phsst," Jack hissed and tried to wave the cat away. Was it too much to want to eat a meal in peace? Mrs. Brady didn't budge. Instead, a low, guttural moan emanated from somewhere between his throat and his feet.

"Go on now. You've been fed." Jack had reminded Harlan six or seven times before he'd left.

The cat blinked again and glanced down at the tuna.

"You heard me."

Mrs. Brady licked his lips and groaned.

The animal hadn't paid this much attention to Jack since he'd had his stitches removed after the great snowplow incident of '99. And even then, only to rake apart Jack's flesh as he held the beast still for the vet. Jack let out a long breath. Clearly, the cat hadn't been fed. Pushing back his chair, Jack crossed the room and opened the cupboard, hunting for a can of Pretty Kitty cat food.

Nothing.

He checked the fridge. No cat food and, worse, no reasonable substitutions. The cat wasn't going to appreciate limp broccoli, expired hummus, or strawberry-flavored applesauce with no artificial sweeteners. Jack closed the door and paused. Harlan. He could pick up some cat food from the variety store. It wouldn't be Pretty Kitty, but Mrs. Brady would just have to deal.