Galanes, Philip 1963-

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GALANES, Philip 1963-

PERSONAL: Born 1963, in Brattleboro, VT. Education: Degree from Yale University (magna cum laude), 1984, J.D., 1991.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: Lawyer and author. Television and print advertising producer; teacher at American School, Switzerland; New York Times, former news assistant. Entertainment attorney for Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison; general counsel, vice president of legal affairs, and chief operating officer for Golden Books Family Entertainment; attorney in private practice.

WRITINGS:

Father's Day, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: A lawyer specializing in the entertainment industry, Philip Galanes drew on his own life experiences—including his father's suicide—to write his first novel, Father's Day. In the book, Matthew Vaber, the main character and manager of a New York fine art photography gallery, must come to terms with the loss of his father by suicide. Although Matthew was little impressed by his father when he was alive, the man's death causes him to question their relationship and his own life, including his addiction to sex and a gay telephone service called "Pump Line." Galanes guides the reader through a year in Matthew's life as Matthew avoids his shrink, argues with his much-admired but damaged mother, and makes discoveries about his family and himself. Eventually, as he searches for answers and comes to terms with his own vulnerability, Matthew finds what may be true love.

"Father's Day might be more psychologically pat than probing, but line by tart line, Galanes gives us a curious and even brave thing: a novel at once comic and heartbreaking, brutally frank and willfully obscure," wrote Mark Rozzo in the Los Angeles Times. Harold Augenbraum noted in the Library Journal that the plot may sound "mid-list and trite, [but] Galanes's brief, often one-sentence paragraphs and snippets of interior monolog and exterior dialog keep the pace brisk throughout." Although a Kirkus Reviews contributor viewed the character of Matthew as a "cliché," most critics praised the book. "Father's Day is not in any way a simplistic book," David Blaustein stated in Lambda Book Report, the critic going on to call the novel "intense and intelligently written." A Publishers Weekly contributor commended the author's handling of characters, noting, "Galanes paints his characters with a light veneer of despair and an oftentimes tongue-in-cheek sentimentality in this appealing hangdog debut."