Paul Arata

Serious Roommate Problems Paul Arata

Serious Roommate Problems is the story of a man's desperate attempt to save his marriage by writing the story telling his wife how he first met and fell in love with her. Pete Dominico's narrative set in Brooklyn in the early 1990's offers a dive into the complex urban social issues young people face every day. It follows Pete Dominico's journey moving into the black neighborhood of Fort Greene a couple of years after being mugged and stabbed by an African American crack addict in New Jersey. The story follows how Pete meets and falls in love with Holly while he is caught in the middle of a dispute between his two Jamaican roommates that gets crazier and more complicated every day. The story highlights how relationships blossom with the excitement of attraction and personal chemistry and illuminates the breakdown of relationships because of men and women's wildly dissimilar perspectives on love and commitment both when they are single and when they are married. This is the first novel of a two-part series with the second part of Serious Roommate Problems following the relationship when they move to Portland Oregon and Pete must adjust to life with Holly's colorful western family.