by Lily Brett
“I do feel much better myself,” Edek said. “I am happy that I did come back to Lódz and get the photograph,” he said. “I am happy I did tell you the whole story.”
“I’m glad, too, Dad,” she said.
Edek looked around the room. “This room is as bad as mine room,” he said.
“It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?” Ruth said.
“It is a shocking room,” Edek said. Ruth pulled back the bedding on the bed.
“Look at this, Dad,” she said. “Three sheets to cover one double bed.”
Edek looked at the sheets.
“This is really something special. I never seen anything like this.”
“Special to Lódz,” Ruth said.
“Very special to Lódz,” he said. Edek started to laugh. “This is a very funny way to make a bed,” he said. He clutched his stomach, and laughed harder. “I did never see a bed what was made like this,” he said.
Ruth started laughing. “You have to laugh,” she said.
The phone in the room rang. “Who could that be?” Ruth said.
“I think it could be for me,” Edek said. He ran toward the phone. He picked it up. “It is for me,” he said to Ruth. He turned away from her.
“Hello, hello,” he said into the phone. Ruth wondered who it could be.
T O O M A N Y M E N
[ 5 3 1 ]
Maybe it was Edek’s lawyer. The lawyer from Melbourne. Edek had lowered his voice. She heard him say he was in his daughter’s room. Ruth stared at him. “I do not have time to call you back,” Edek said in Polish, into the phone.
Ruth was bewildered. Who was her father talking to? She looked at Edek. “Yes, yes, yes,” he was saying. “Yes, of course. My daughter did take it fine,” he said. She tapped Edek on the shoulder.
“Who is it?” she whispered.
“My daughter does send you her warmest regards,” Edek said.
“Who is it?” Ruth said.
“Yes,” Edek said. “She does send you her most warm regards.”
“Who is it?” Ruth said, again.
“Yes, yes,” Edek said into the phone. He laughed. “I do not have time to talk now, my sweetheart,” Edek said. My sweetheart, Ruth thought. Is that what he said? My sweetheart. “My sweetheart, we are leaving very soon for New York,” Edek said, into the phone. Moje ukochanie. My sweetheart. My love. Was that what Edek had said? The words spun around Ruth’s head. My sweetheart. That was definitely what Edek had said.
Ruth shook her head. She sat down on the bed. “I will call you as soon as I get to New York,” Edek said into the phone. Ruth was still shaking her head. “Bye bye, my sweetheart,” Edek said. “I will call you the second I do get to New York.” He hung up the phone. “That was Zofia,” Edek said.
A b o u t t h e A u t h o r
L I LY B R E T T , one of Australia’s most beloved novelists and poets, is the critically acclaimed author of three previous novels, two collections of essays, and six collections of poetry. Brett is married to the Australian painter David Rankin. They have three children and live in New York City.
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PRAISE FOR
Too Many Men
“At once haunting, riotously funny, and deeply touching. . . . Brett has succeeded triumphantly in the most delightful surprise of the year.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review)
“Irresistible.”
— People
“Funny. . . . Powerful. . . . Chilling.”
— O magazine
“Sophisticated and tender, comic and serious.”
— New York Daily News
“Heartfelt.”
— Time Out (New York)
“A marvelous read.”
— The Forward
“Haunting. . . . Heartbreaking. . . . Too Many Men manages both humor and searing sadness, sometimes in the same moment.”
— BookPage
“One of a rare breed . . . a polished stylist with brains, wit, and a message.”
— Sun Herald (Australia)
“As Brett’s readers we get soundscapes, mindscapes, and feelingscapes.
. . .We are drawn closer to what Brett chooses to give us, as people who cluster nearer to the storyteller’s candle when all else is dark.”
— Australian Review
“Perhaps you can have too many men (I wouldn’t know) but I do know you can’t have enough of Lily Brett. Her book is an extraordinary achievement: a feat of wit, passion, and intellect which manages somehow both to be in the tradition of the eighteenth-century philosophical novel and yet be a gripping page-turner. It’s serious without ever being solemn; a comedy of manners and a tragic history; a journey through memory; an odyssey of a father and daughter towards a place and time both of them would rather not go but are, in the end, taken anyway. It also features the most improbable, disembodied fellow traveler in modern fiction, who sticks around in the memory, like all Brett’s creations, long after the last page is turned.”
—Simon Schama
A L S O B Y L I LY B R E T T
F I C T I O N
Things Could Be Worse
What God Wants
Just Like That
E S S A Y S
In Full View
P O E T R Y
The Auschwitz Poems
Poland and Other Poems
After the War
Unintended Consequences
In Her Strapless Dresses
Mud in My Tears
Credits
Designed by Paula Russell Szafranski
Copyright
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or localities is entirely coincidental.
TOO MANY MEN. Copyright © 1999, 2001 by Lily Brett All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
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Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader November 2006 ISBN 978-0-06-134342-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 0-06-008444-8
0-00-639218-0 (Canadian edition)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
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Document Outline
Cover Image
Title Page
Dedication Page
Contents Chapter One
Chapter Two
Cha
pter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
Praise
Also by Lily Brett
Credits
Copyright Notice
About the Publisher
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Lily Brett
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
A b o u t t h e A u t h o r
