Marin, Rick 1962-

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MARIN, Rick 1962-

PERSONAL: Born 1962, in Canada; son of a professor of Spanish; married (divorced).

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY, and Sag Harbor, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Hyperion, 77 West 66th St., 11th Floor, New York, NY 10023.

CAREER: Journalist. Newsweek, New York, NY, former senior writer; New York Times, New York, NY, former staff writer.

WRITINGS:

Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor of advice column to a women's magazine; contributor to TV Guide, Rolling Stone, and Newsweek.

ADAPTATIONS: Cad was adapted as an audio book, Hyperion, 2003. Film rights to Cad were purchased by Miramax.

SIDELIGHTS: Rick Marin, a former staff writer for the New York Times Sunday Style section, opened up to his fellow journalists as well as to the reading public at large with his 2003 tongue-in-cheek tell-all Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor.

As the book opens, Marin is making a comeback into the New York City dating scene, having recently called quits his three-year-old marriage. Through his concerted manipulations to work his way into the bedroom of Cloe, his first post-divorce date, by running up a huge bar tab while plying her with cognac, readers are "introduced to the warring sides of the modern cad, the man on the make who sells a certain sensitive romantic premise, perhaps even secretly hoping that it comes true," according to Salon.com reviewer Jake Tapper. In Marin's case, it does come true—the author finds true love—but not before he sows a few wild oats and gains some maturity along the way.

While a Kirkus Reviews contributor maintained that the author "displays an overdeveloped sense of entitlement and appreciation of his own sly humor," John Marshall dubbed Cad "hilarious" in his Seattle Post-Intelligencer review. Calling Marin a "classic social observer," Marshall went on to say that although the author's choice of women to date "often led him down the fast road to dead ends," throughout his memoir he often comes "perilously close to genuine insight into the whys behind the messes people make in the name of love." In the New York Times Book Review, Virginia Heffernan took issue with the book's title, noting that "Marin is no cad in Cad: rather, he is a bright New York City man in search of a wife. . . . He fairly disgraces the long line of Lotharios and Don Juans and Casanovas who give cads their good bad name."