Dearie, John

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DEARIE, John

PERSONAL:

Born in Corpus Christi, TX; married Stefanie, 2001. Education: Attended University of Notre Dame and Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Wappingers Falls, NY. Office—Financial Services Volunteer Corps, 10 East 53rd St., 24th Floor, New York, NY 10022. Agent—Alice Martell, Martell Agency, 545 Madison Ave., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10022.

CAREER:

Writer and finance professional. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, held various positions in Banking Studies, Foreign Exchange, and Policy and Analysis for nine years; Financial Services Forum, vice president and chief policy officer; Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC), managing director.

WRITINGS:

Love and Other Recreational Sports, Viking (New York, NY), 2003.

Speechwriter for New York Federal Reserve Bank presidents E. Gerald Corrigan and William J. McDonough.

SIDELIGHTS:

John Dearie arrived in New York City for a job on Wall Street and spent the next fifteen years as a young single professional enjoying city life.

In addition to his career as a novelist, Dearie is the managing director of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC), a non-profit organization that recruits senior executives to volunteer on technical assistance missions to developing countries. He and wife Steffanie have left Manhattan to live in nearby Wappingers Falls, NY. His writing experience includes short stories and speech writing. Taking Mark Twain's advice to "write what you know," his first novel, Love and Other Recreational Sports, is a romantic romp that reveals what men really think about women, relationships, sex, and commitment along the way to true love and happiness.

Main character Jack Lafferty is good looking, thirty-five, a successful Wall Street banker, and unhappy in love when his fiancée cheats on him three weeks before their wedding. After swearing off both women and drink, he meets Sarah Mitchell—the woman everyone says is his perfect mate. An embittered Jack goes to great lengths to avoid Sarah. When he finally realizes the truth of his love, Sarah is no longer available. How this relationship evolves, or rather does not, is the heart of this contemporary romantic tale of a modern guy giving up on love and the surprises that follow his vow of abstinence.

" Love and Other Recreational Sports isn't a fictional map into the psyches of men," stated reviewer April Umminger in USA Today. "If anything, this lighthearted read revives the rules of dating." Harriet Klausner of the Best Reviews considers Jack to be a "great character whose lack of self deprecating humor and overall depressing outlook over his love life makes him seem real." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly credited Dearie with "an eye for amusing details and [described] the book as a spirited ode to New York City."

When asked about how men relate to women, Dearie told Umminger that "relationships are one of the only ways that men can show their vulnerability without risking their masculinity. There's a common misperception that all men do is grunt at each other when they get together. I wanted to show that there is emotion and feeling beneath the surface. It's like a type of code, but it's there between men." About his first novel, Dearie said, "We've been hearing an awful lot in recent years about single, young, professional women. I had to ask myself, 'Where are the guys?' One of my main reasons for writing this was to give voice to the male experience."