Geography of an Adultery
A Novel
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- 9,99 €
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- 9,99 €
Publisher Description
Dissecting a midlife affair, this perceptive, slyly comical debut explores how the spaces that limit our movements can be more exciting than the person we think we want.
Ema and Paul are lovers. Like so many others before them, they met through work. Both are married with children, and they arrange hurried meetings away from prying eyes. Paul’s car, a corner of Ema’s house, a hotel room…But their relationship soon suffers from this too-restricted sphere, and Ema decides to put them both in danger, at the risk of losing everything.
Cleverly attaching itself to the locations where passion plays out—whether domestic or professional, safe or transgressive—Geography of an Adultery casts a radical eye on anticipation and desire. With her deceptively cool, clinically precise style, Agnès Riva unravels the inner workings of a private life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Riva follows the emotional ups and downs of an affair in this intriguingly oblique debut. Ema and Paul begin an affair after meeting at the French labor court where they work; she's a part-time counselor, he's a full-time elected official. Both are married with children, and their assignations are restricted to rare moments. Riva focuses the narrative on descriptions of the confined locations they steal away to, such as Paul's car, a corner of Ema's kitchen out of sight of the windows, or a chapel on the outskirts of their unnamed town. Ema grows anxious during the long periods when Paul, who turns out to be a serial philanderer, does not contact her, and she unexpectedly shows up at his house. When Ema's action does not reorient the power dynamic the way she'd hoped it would, she persists, swept away by her emotions ("her faith in love is her version of spirituality"). The events of the affair take a back seat to precise descriptions of the characters' quotidian and transitory surroundings, such as stained glass windows and hotel floor tiles; the drama resides in Ema's evolving feelings, which Riva keenly renders. It adds up to a beguiling portrayal of desire.
