The Adult
A Novel
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An addictively gripping coming-of-age story about an all-consuming, insidious love affair between a college freshman and a mysterious older woman, from an unforgettable new voice in fiction
Eighteen-year-old Natalie has just arrived at her first year of university in Toronto, leaving her remote, forested hometown for the big, impersonal city. Everyone she encounters seems to know exactly who they are. She reads advice listicles and watches videos online and thinks about how to fit in, how to really become someone, whoever that might be.
And then she meets Nora, an older woman who takes an unexpected interest in her, and is drawn unstoppably into Nora’s orbit. She begins spending more and more of her time at Nora’s perfect, tidy home in her beautiful, quiet world. Natalie lies to her floormates about her absence, inventing a fake off-campus boyfriend, and carefully protects this sacred, adult relationship. This only deepens her obsession, even as she comes to suspect Nora is hiding something. As the secrets multiply and the intensity of the romance threatens to overwhelm her, Natalie realizes that the new, adult identity she had imagined for herself is far from the one she’s actually coming to know.
With atmospheric, electric prose that captures the anxiety and emotional intensity of young adulthood like never before, The Adult is about sex, yearning, poetry, and learning to free oneself from the expectations of others. Bronwyn Fischer is an immensely talented new writer to watch.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Fischer's engrossing debut, a freshman at the University of Toronto struggles with anxiety and homesickness. Natalie, having given up her rural life on Lake Temagami to study in the city, is having a hard time adjusting to the change. Then one day she's approached in the park by a charming, divorced woman named Nora. They soon become lovers, and the playful and attentive Nora makes Natalie feel like the center of attention. Indeed, about Nora, Natalie thinks, "I wanted her to tell me how I should spend all my time." She keeps their relationship secret, telling her friends she's seeing an older man. Meanwhile, Natalie is captivated by a poetry class taught by a formidable professor rumored to have slept with a student. Natalie feels inadequate at every turn, comparing her poetry to her sophisticated classmates' and fretting over how directionless she feels. Then, over winter break, she learns Nora has been hiding something that threatens their bliss. Fischer paints Natalie with care, exploring the depths of her spinning, developing mind. Full of heart, this perfectly captures the lonely messiness of youth.
