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 First edition cover | |
| Author | Alexandra Gray |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Atlantic Books |
Publication date | 13 January 2005 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback &Paperback) |
| Pages | 304 p. (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | 1-84354-256-0 (paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 190775518 |
Ten Men is a novel byAlexandra Gray that was first published in2005. Episodic in character, it covers a period of 20 years in the life of thefirst person narrator, an attractive nameless Englishwoman in search of perfect happiness, a state she equates with life with a perfect partner.Ten Men is a serious treatment of the common "chick lit"motif of "waiting for Mr Right". In her late thirties and childless at the end of the novel, the heroine has had relationships with a succession of men but has not been able to achieve the happiness and peace of mind she has been longing for all her adult life. According toWorldCat, the book is found in over 200 United States libraries .[1]
Ten Men is apicaresque novel in that the heroine is constantly "moving on", time and again leaving behind the people she has been intimate with and associating with a new set in some other part of the world. The novel asks the basic question of how many men a woman "needs" until she has found the right partner and thus fulfilment in life—a question which, although frequently discussed in the wake of thesexual revolution, has turned out to be largely unanswerable.
Theprotagonist is born in the mid-1960s. After her father's premature death when she is seven, she and her sister are brought up in England by their mother, who is a FrenchCatholic. Conditioned to believe thatpre-marital sex is asin, at 18 the heroine is forced into an earlymarriage with a teacher, who works literally day and night at a remoteboarding school for boys. Stripped of herprivacy and her youthful ways, she clings to her husband, hoping he will take a job elsewhere. When he does not she deserts him and embarks on a series of affairs with wealthy men who are not interested in a long-term relationship with her: a lawyer, acapitalist ("the Billionaire"), aLord.
Similar to Caroline Meeber inDreiser'sSister Carrie, the protagonist is not prepared to earn a living through honest work dependent on her qualifications. Accordingly, she always has to rely financially on the men in her life. In particular, it is the billionaire who, as a kind of parting present, volunteers to pay for her very expensive university education at some exclusiveNew Yorkcollege as well as for herUpper East Side apartment.
After hergraduation the protagonist eventually moves back toLondon. An affair with a sexually inexperienced man ("theVirgin") leads to her firstpregnancy ever and a subsequentmiscarriage. Having trained as an actress, she gets a few jobs inTVcommercials. When she meets her ex-husband again it is only to find out that he is going to get married again. At the end of the novel, aged about 38 and still indecisive, she meets asingle father who might become her future partner.