Highly awkward teenager Stanley Owens meets his match in beautiful, brainy Vera Baxter when they tie for first place in the annual National Spelling Bee-and the two form a bond that will change both of their lives.
Though their mothers have big plans for them-Stanley will become a senator, Vera a mathematics professor-neither wants to follow these pre-determined paths. So Stanley hatches a scheme to marry Vera in a sham wedding for the cash gifts, hoping they will enable him to pursue his one true love: crossword puzzle construction. In enlisting Vera to marry him, though, he neglects one variable: she's secretly in love with him, which makes their counterfeit ceremony an exercise in misery for her.
Realizing the truth only after she's moved away and cut him out of her life, Stanley tries to atone for his mistakes and win her back. But he's unable to find her, until one day he comes across a puzzle whose clues make him think it could only have been created by Vera. Intrigued, he plays along, communicating back to her via his own gridded clues. But will they connect again before it's all too late?
Jeff Bartsch is an award-winning copywriter who has worked on campaigns for many major brands, received the D&D Young Guns Award, and been featured twice in
Adweek's Spot of the Week. He studied creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, and held the Katey Lehman Fellowship in the MFA program at Penn State University. He lives in New York.
A crossword creator and con man eludes the woman who loves him, until he realizes his error. . . . Stanley is a character Wes Anderson would love. . . . [TWO ACROSS] moves at a nice clip, aided by the regular appearance of the cleverly coded puzzles Stanley and Vera plant for each other in various newspapers. Crossword enthusiasts will appreciate the many insider winks, but everyone will be eager to solve the book's biggest puzzle: whls)
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