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The Real Thing - J.J. Murray

I won an autographed copy of this book from the Goodreads giveaway. I read another J.J. Murray book, I’m Your Girl, about two years ago. What I find so enjoyable about his books is their fairly apolitical exploration of interracial relationships. Murray never makes a big hoopla out of two people from different backgrounds falling for one another–he simply lets it happen without any sociopolitical commentary. The conflicts are, instead, interpersonal.

The Real Thing is no different. Christiana, a journalist, manages to get an interview with the elusive Dante, a boxer staging a big comeback. Over the course of their three days together, they fall in lust/love. The root story is refreshing, as the protagonists are over 30 and independently successful. Christiana, however, is sometimes prone to fits of jealousy, impulsiveness, and narcissism/vanity. She has an extraordinarily compelling back-story, and I sometimes wished that the book had explored it in more depth. I think that some more concrete links could have been forged between her tragic past and her sometimes ridiculous behavior.

Overall, this book makes for a fun beach read. The characters are fairly interesting (though I found Dante’s ex-wife, Evelyn/”Evil Lyn,” to be somewhat of a caricature) and the tone remains generally humorous throughout.