The Tunnel of Love (novel)

The Tunnel of Love is a novel by American author Peter De Vries; it was published on May 12, 1954, by Little, Brown and Company. The novel is written in first-person narration from the viewpoint of a magazine art editor. He tells the story of his neighbors in fictional Avalon, Connecticut, a cartoonist named Augie Poole and his wife Isolde, and their efforts to adopt a child, using the narrator and his wife Audrey as references. However, the majority of interactions and dialogue concern the narrator, often as internal musings, and entire chapters go by without a mention of Augie or Isolde. The story spans roughly three years in the life of these two couples, including a look ahead prologue at the beginning.

The novel was constructed adapting five short stories published several years earlier in The New Yorker. These formed the basis for chapters 6, 11, 13, 15, and 17 in the 1st edition. The novel was a sleeper hit, gradually building up readership over the summer of 1954 until it started appearing on bestseller lists. While there is some mild situational and character-based comedy, the main source of humor for the novel is in wordplay; the author De Vries was a connoisseur of punning. Despite some situations where it might be expected, there are no double entendres of a sexual nature in the novel. There is some Walter Mitty style daydreaming by the narrator, not of heroic action but of delivered witticisms.