Arnon Grunberg

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Benefits

Anyone interested in friends with benefits should read Joyce Wadler’s article about Giulia Melucci in today’s Times.
Ms. Melucci is the author of “I loved, I lost, I Made Spaghetti.” Joyce Wadler describes Ms. Melucci as “perpetually single”.
Here’s one of my favorite paragraphs of this article: ‘When the same writer says he wants only to be friends, Ms. Melucci makes him an offer that not even a newly dead man could refuse: “If we’re friends, why can’t we have sex?” While not a sound recipe for romance, this does result in “Pear Cake for Friends With Benefits,” which Ms. Melucci whips up for the writer after sex, and which sounds awfully good.
Ms. Melucci also falls hard for a Scottish writer she calls Lachlan, who has not published a novel in 10 years and eagerly accepts her offer to get him an agent, as well as her home cooking and the use of her apartment. Unlike most of the men in her life, he occasionally cooks and once, when he overcooks the pasta, he apologizes.
“It would be the only time he took responsibility for a limp noodle,” Ms. Melucci writes.’

This paragraph is pretty good too: ‘“It’s amazing a man could sleep in a bed with a woman for three months and show no interest,” says Ms. Melucci, who was working as a publicist for Harper’s Magazine at the time. “But he came on like a house afire. That first night, wow, it was amazing, wherever he put me I was going. It was wild! The next night he called and said, ‘Let’s mess up the sheets again.’ I brought him a copy of Harper’s Magazine. I took off my clothes. He actually sat there with me and read Harper’s for a while.” That must have been some article. Could she recall what it was about? It would make some writer’s day.
“Can’t remember,” Ms. Melucci says. “You could say Lewis Lapham. That would make him happy. He’s a good guy.” What did she hope to accomplish by cooking wonderful dishes for these jerks? “I thought it would make them love me,” she says. “You really ultimately hope it’s going to get you that love we all want.”’

The moral of this story: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.