Skin Contact
'The hottest, sluttiest book of the summer' Alice Slater
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- CHF 13.00
Beschreibung des Verlags
A razor-sharp exploration of intimacy, non-monogamous desire, and motherhood
'A grieving woman opens her marriage after the death of her mother. It goes mostly well - until her husband falls in love with someone else...'
NEW YORK TIMES, The Novels Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer
'Deeply readable, this will be the hottest, sluttiest book of the summer'
ALICE SLATER, AUTHOR OF LET THE BAD TIMES ROLL
'Novels about non-monogamy are hardly a novelty nowadays, but Skin Contact is a smart, involving debut written with an empathy and insight that ensures it never feels passé'
DAILY MAIL
'A fresh take on making marriage work in the modern age . . . one not to miss'
MARIE CLAIRE
'Acute and witty on female desire'
FINANCIAL TIMES, Five of the Best Debut Novels
Unmoored by her mother's sudden death, Frances has never felt so diminished, or so old. She's painfully aware that strangers no longer look at her the same way - and that she's now, at thirty-two, older than the great aunt for whom she was named, who was killed in the seventies under mysterious circumstances involving an extramarital affair.
Her husband, Ben, will do anything to help Frances regain her vivacity and sense of purpose. So when Frances suggests that they open their marriage, Ben complies.
Over the next two years, they explore their sexualities and latent kinks; they navigate jealousy, betrayal, desire, and obsession; they defend their choices - and their new identities - to confused friends. They do all of this together, as a team. But when Ben finds himself falling in love with another woman, just as Frances realizes she's ready to settle down and have a baby, they are forced to confront the consequences of their experiment.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Faison's assured debut explores the ripple effect of a couple's decision to open their marriage. Frances and Ben, together since college, never considered such a thing. But after the sudden death of 30-year-old Frances's mother, Frances is left longing for a way to break through her emotional numbness. A flirtatious exchange with Lily, the couple's server at a restaurant, leads to an intensely pleasurable night for all three—but it's February 2020, and a global pandemic puts any further plans with Lily on hold. A couple of years later, as the world opens back up, Frances and Ben resume exploring the boundaries of their relationship, adapting to each other's changing desires. Meanwhile, their friends and family are alternately perplexed, intrigued, and titillated by their experimenting. The novel's structure—which shifts back and forth from the happy early years of Ben and Frances's marriage to the couple's expanded life with people they've dated, including Lily—is largely successful, though some of the flashbacks feel disconnected, particularly those centered on Frances's mother and grandmother. Still, Faison cleverly mirrors the phases of the couple's open relationship with shifts in tone, moving from sexy and exciting to increased emotional intensity and vulnerability. Readers will find it an intimate and insightful story of modern romance.
