Look Who it Was Random video

Maynard and Jennica | Rudolph Delson | Talks at Google

1,730 views · Published 25 January 2008 · 50:49 · Indexed 2 October 2026

Channel: Talks at Google · 2008 · Entertainment

Watch on YouTube

The @ Google Program was happy to welcome first time novelist Rudolph Delson to discuss his book "Maynard and Jennica".

About the Book

A wildly original debut, Maynard and Jennica weaves together dozens of voices to give us an unforgettable love story -- wrapped up in a hilarious urban comedy, a page-turning literary mystery, and a portrait of our times. Maynard Gogarty is a defeated musician, a reformed misanthrope who makes a hobby of surreptitiously filming the fashion faux pas of New York City commuters. On an uptown 6 train in the sweltering summer of 2000 he meets Jennica Green, a nostalgic Californian who calculates that she's been lonesome 68.53 percent of her adult life. Though their initial acquaintance is fleeting, when fate next brings them together, at a screening of Maynard's film, romance intrudes. And as with most things in life, everyone has an opinion.In the case of Maynard and Jennica, everyone includes many living and some dead relatives, a sultry scam artist who may or may not be Russian or Israeli or German, a hip-hop impresario named Puppy Jones, several dubious lawyers, a long-lost best friend, and a freelance contributor to The New Yorker. Exuberantly illuminating much that is telling (and often horrifying) about our times, fast-paced, and wryly funny, Maynard and Jennica introduces an astonishing number of narrators -- thirty-five in all -- while remaining true to the relationships at its heart. The result is an uproarious and deeply moving tour de force. Delson has given us a pair of lovers who are flawed, complex, at once eccentric and deeply familiar -- and in whose story we continue to feel invested long after we've turned the last page.

This event took place at the Google NYC campus on January 4, 2008

More from this channel