Alligators in the trees
I received a free kindle copy of Alligators in the Trees by Cynthia Hamilton from Amazon. Sadly, I rated it a three. 
I did like the characters. Priscilla is a lyric writing waitress. Phil is a down on his luck architect who had a daughter that is his saving grace. Tobias is a former rock star. They intersect at Frank's a dive of a restaurant. It started out with a lot of potential but have to admit it DRAGGED. I kept thinking it would improve but there was too much introspection & chatter that ruined it for me.
"'Greed & resentment make for strange bedfellows,' Philip replied." He's discussing his pending divorce with his attorney.
"Naturally, Martin's reasons were purely self-serving." That is in reference to the amoral attorney helping Philip in regard to his collapsed building & in his divorce proceedings.
"...sometime before Priscilla figured out Brawny was yet another emotional defective. She realized now that she was a beacon for misfits, a safe refuge for those unqualified to navigate life's twists & turns." She was ready to journal more about these qualities she discovered but seemed unable to change her actions.
"It didn't surprise her she'd been given half a talent. It was just another cosmic joke to keep the fates amused." She was a prolific lyric writer but didn't know how to write music to go with them. That's where her encounter with Tobias, a has-been rock star hoping for a comeback made a difference for both of them.
"Had he gone soft living the good life, turning himself into the butt-end of one of his own jokes? She laughed, appreciating the irony of the scornful becoming the scorned." This is after she met Tobias while she was working as a waitress at Frank's, a cook who could ruin coffee.
"He saw the girl she had been and the woman she'd never be." This was an impromptu lyric that came to mind.
"Because of the way the chair forced him to sit, any impetus remaining in him to do anything else was easily overcome by the sheer force of gravity. It would take more energy than he could muster to get out of the thing, so he decided he'd just have to sit there all night." This was Philip describing his bout with depression. This is an apt description.
"...decades--concentrated doses of creative brainstorming mixed with the stirring vibes of female nearness, what Tobias referred to as 'cosmic purring.'"
Tobias knows his marriage is ending. "Nor did he believe she [Monique] had any emotional dependence on him. They were simply keeping their feet on the treadmill, going through the motions of marriage"
"Tobias filled the Jacuzzi tub and submerged himself. He was as crinkled as a gherkin when he emerged, but the static drone in his brain had cleared & his flesh was showing signs of life. This was the new lifestyle he had made for himself by moving into a hotel suite.
Back to Priscilla & her introspection. "She had reached the point in the honest assessment of her life where she had become immune to the sense of humiliation or failure. Everything now struck her as hopelessly absurd & every new revelation made her shake her head with weary wonder."
This was the place in the story line that made me begin to hope things would improve. And of course there was much more of the same. I wished she would follow through on her goal to leave New York for Florida & be done with the nonsense. She didn't.
I would recommend this book for anyone who wants a lot of 'dialogue'.
The following video has nothing to do with the book other than the aliigator title. It's more exciting.
Link to purchase: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006HNDM72?ie=UTF8&creativeASIN=B006HNDM72&linkCode=xm2&tag=injoslifethin-20
