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Finding the right woman is not easy. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, temperaments, and ages. Very few come with warranties or owner’s manuals. Most require shots of various kinds, dental work and their own space in the closet. Some even require varying amounts of cosmetic surgery. Is it any wonder that some men opt for a wide-screen TV instead? It is this search for the right woman that is at the core of the debut novel Girlfriend 44 by a promising new British writer, Mark Barrowcliffe. The two male protagonists in this story Harry, a fattish, middle-aged television researcher who drinks too much, and Gerrard, a thin, middle-aged perfectionist who drinks too little are roommates who are forever commiserating over the lack of acceptable women on the open market. Harry is looking for girlfriend number 44 and Gerrard is looking for perfect girlfriend number three. Meanwhile, all they have is each other.

Enter the ideal specimen, Alice, a woman who is so perfect it is nauseating, and you can perhaps divine where the story is headed. The fact that she likes both men only makes the ultimate stakes higher for each man. Neither wants to lose to a loser.

Despite its cosmic social implications, Girlfriend 44 shouldn’t be misjudged; it is a comic look at the expectations men and women have for a process that few people of either sex ever master. Dating is only a microcosm of life itself you’ll do just fine, as long as you never convince yourself that you will somehow come out of the experience alive. Barrowcliffe is an exceptional writer, but the genius of this work is his apparent realization that if he combined every prejudice women have about men and injected them into the genes of Harry and Gerrard, he would have the makings of a bestseller and he is probably correct.

Read it and weep.

Author James L. Dickerson abandoned his search for the right woman with the publication of his book, Women on Top. These days he watches a lot of television.

impressive, ambitious and extraordinarily imagined new novel from a Columbia anthropologist and New Yorker writer chronicles the modern history of Burma, from the 1885 British invasion to the political turmoil of present day Myanmar (as Burma is now called). The events are seen primarily through the eyes of Rajkumar Raha, an intrepid 11-year-old Indian orphan who finds himself on the eve of the British invasion stranded in Mandalay. A romantic and ambitious boy, Rajukmar becomes enthralled with the large fort that houses the Burmese royal family, vowing to “find a way in” the Glass Palace, the compound’s inner sanctum, named for its “shining crystal walls and mirrored ceilings.” His chance comes sooner than he imagined. When British troops invade and loot the royal compound, the locals stampede the Glass Palace, searching for treasure. Therein, Rajkumar encounters 10-year-old Dolly, the queen’s favorite and most beautiful maid. Instantly smitten, Rajkumar is crushed when, a day or so later, Dolly departs with the rest of the royal entourage, who have been exiled to India.

The first half of the novel follows Rajkumar, who makes his fortune in the teak industry, and Dolly, who plods through her days in Ratnagiri, the remote Indian town to which the Burmese royal family are exiled. Almost 20 years later, Rajkumar finds Dolly and convinces her to marry him. In the novel’s second half the plot shifts, focusing on Rajkumar and Dolly’s grown children and Uma’s nieces and nephew. Although the various entanglements and dilemmas of this younger generation prove compelling, some of these characters have the feel of props, inserted in order to illustrate some aspect of the horrors of war and colonialism.

This is a small complaint, however, and one that perhaps should not be applied to an epic, episodic novel of this sort. For The Glass Palace resembles less a contemporary American plot-driven novel, than a sprawling work like Dos Passos’ USA or a Greek epic. This is a major accomplishment from an important writer, worth reading if only for a greater understanding of Burmese and Indian history, and for a great thinker’s perspective on the problems of colonialism and post-colonialism.

Joanna Smith Rakoff is the book editor for Shout magazine.

John Grisham’s engrossing new coming-of-age novel should banish any notion that his talent is limited to writing legal thrillers. Set in the low, cotton-growing flatlands of northeastern Arkansas in 1952, A Painted House chronicles two months in the life of seven-year-old Luke Chandler. Before the season is over, Luke will have seen (and been dazzled by) his first naked girl, peeked through a window at a loud and painful childbirth and witnessed two murders. But he also will have learned about the depth of compassion especially his own.

Unlike many Southern novels, A Painted House is mercifully free of grotesque characters, grown men with baby names, dysfunctional families and racial politics. "There were no ethnic groups," Luke observes at a community baseball game, "no blacks or Jews or Asians, no permanent outsiders of any variety. We were all of Anglo-Irish stock, maybe a strain or two of German blood, and everybody farmed or sold to the farmers. Everybody was a Christian or claimed to be."

To help them harvest their cotton crop, the hard-pressed Chandlers hire a family of "hill people" and a truckload of Mexican migrants. The hill people pitch camp in the front yard of the Chandlers’ weathered and initially unpainted home, while the Mexicans occupy the barn. Just across the river live the numbingly poor sharecroppers, the Latchers. Tumbled together, these factions teach the already somewhat cynical Luke almost more about humanity than he can assimilate.

Grisham makes good use of his own Arkansas childhood in spinning finely nuanced characters (such as Luke’s mother) and pinpointing amusing cultural traits. Here’s how he describes the inability of rural folk to bid each other a quick goodbye: "No one ever got in a hurry when it was time to go. The announcement was made that the hour was late, then repeated, and then someone made the first move to the car or truck amidst the first wave of farewells. Hands were shaken, hugs given, promises exchanged. Progress was made until the group got to the vehicle, at which time the entire procession came to a halt as someone remembered yet another quick story."

With 11 bestselling novels to his credit and more than 60 million copies of his books in print, Grisham takes a change-of-pace risk here. But, by every standard of good storytelling, he triumphs.

Edward Morris is a Nashville-based writer.