Seduction Theory
A Novel
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3,8 • Оценок: 43
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- 14,99 $
От издателя
When two married professors tiptoe toward infidelity, their transgressions are brought to light in a graduate student’s searing thesis project.
“This tour de force is a campus novel, a love story, a coming-of-age narrative, a satire, a performance piece, an M.F.A. exposé, a trove of literary references and a primer on writing.” —The New York Times Book Review
Simone is the star of Edwards University’s creative writing department: renowned Woolf scholar, grief memoirist, and campus sex icon. Her less glamorous and ostensibly devoted husband, Ethan, is a forgotten novelist and lecturer in the same department. According to Simone and Ethan, and everyone on campus, their marriage is perfect. That is, until Ethan sleeps with the department administrative assistant, Abigail, and the couple’s faith in their flawless relationship is rattled.
Simone, meanwhile, has secrets of her own. While Ethan’s away for the summer, she grows inordinately close with her advisee, graduate student Roberta “Robbie” Green. In Robbie, Simone finds a new running partner, confidante, and disciple—or so she believes. Behind Simone’s back, Robbie fictionalizes her mentor’s marriage in a breathtakingly invasive MFA thesis. Determined to tell her version of the story, Robbie paints a revealing portrait of Simone, Ethan, Abigail, and even herself, scratching at the very surface of what may—or may not—be the truth.
Simultaneously provocative and tender, Seduction Theory exposes the intoxicating nature of power and attraction, and is a masterful demonstration of how love and betrayal can coexist.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An MFA student reveals secrets about her writing professors' marriage in Adrian's clever if underwhelming latest (after The Second Season). The novel takes the form of a manuscript written by Robbie Green, a woman studying at Edwards University in Upstate New York, and it follows the story of tenured faculty member Simone, who's well-known on campus for her sex appeal and her marriage to fellow professor Ethan. While Ethan is in Portland, Ore., visiting his mother, he sleeps with Abigail, the creative writing department's secretary, who's in town visiting her father. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Ethan, Simone becomes intensely close with Robbie, as the two read Mrs. Dalloway and train for a marathon together. After Abigail emails Simone about her affair with Ethan, Simone holds the betrayal over Ethan's head and withholds the truth of her "emotional affair" with Robbie. When Robbie joins Ethan's workshop, she begins writing about their complicated foursome for her thesis. Adrian poses intriguing questions about the nature of betrayal, the blurry ethics of professor-student intimacy, and the right to tell another person's story, but too often the narrative favors Robbie's snarky barbs ("Abigail, who was not attractive but to whom Ethan was attracted") over meaningful insights. This is a mixed bag.
