The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York - Hardcover

‘sharp, true and funny’
Evening Standard

‘this witty [[[and rueful]]] chronicle is, unlike giving birth, nothing but fun’
The Times

‘a droll, delightful diary’
She

‘funny and moving’
Marie Claire

After a decade in the London media, Joanna Coles and Peter Godwin set sail for New York. The Three of U.S. is the amusing diary of an affectionate but unconventional and frequently volatile relationship between two competing hypochondriacs about to become parents.

He’s preoccupied by the lump on his elbow. She’s trying to determine the accuracy of the DIY pregnancy-testing kit.

In the summer of 1997 Joanna Coles and Peter Godwin set sail from Southampton for New York and a new life in America. As the quay side band played them off in the drizzle, they anticipated a life of glamorous parties, power brunches and weekend trips to the Bahamas.

Coles had been posted to New York as the Guardian correspondent – but discovered that most New Yorkers mistake the paper for the in-house pamphlet published by La Guardia Airport. Peter Godwin decided to write a novel: a year later, it’s largely unfinished.

Veering from the frankly absurd to the simply bizarre, The Three of U.S. is the alternating diary entries of Coles and Godwin. It chronicles their lives in Manhattan, where they get used to living above the main transvestite drag in Greenwich Village and, after a false start, learn the shocking news that they are to become parents.

Drawing on an eclectic supporting cast of their neurotic, over-achieving, pill popping new friends, it’s a wry look at the panic of thirty-somethings everywhere. From the confusing etiquette of how to greet your film star neighbours, to the labyrinth of American health care, from gay pride to the dog that pays taxes, from the dungeons of S&M clubs to society benefits, it is also the diary of one of the world’s greatest and most extreme cities.