thorns on the rose
March 6, 2019 10:16 AM Subscribe
Looking for novels about uncomfortable and difficult romantic shake-ups to long-term partnerships.
Basically I am looking for well-written novels where a grown woman in a settled or dissatisfying long-term partnership (any gender) finds herself compromised by an intense, obsessive, overpowering and potentially undesired attraction to a new person (any gender). Things should Never Be The Same after the protagonist and the person to whom they are attracted meet. I'm interested in the writing on the feelings of the matter a lot more than I am in plot or setting. If half the novel takes place in her head that's completely fine and preferable to this being the seasoning on a novel with an unrelated plot. Preferably this is not a "women behaving badly"-style novel of an unstable woman engaging in multiple sordid infidelities, etc. Anything physical should be hard-won and sparse. But, honestly, I'll take a solid and coherent novel over sticking too closely to any of my preferences except where noted.
What I am looking for:
-Obsession, turmoil, dissatisfaction, longing, reluctance, struggle, confusion and other difficult, not-easily-settled emotions
-A female protagonist at least in her 30s if not older (necessarily)
-Preferably but not necessarily a female author
-A contemporary setting (post-WW2)
-Difficult personalities all around.
What I'm not looking for:
-A big focus on the protagonist's long-term partner as an individual. I don't want to read a novel about them.
-Unambiguously abusive partnerships or bright-line violations of consent. This one is a hard rule.
-Third person/authorial moralizing
-Heavy religious (esp. Christian) elements.
-A heavy focus on-page sex; a sex scene or two is fine but I'm def. not asking for erotic literature.
-Experimental fiction unless it's really, really worth the difficult read.
-Narratives that lead to a pat ending. I'm loathe to bring this up but the barely-an-ending to Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis' subplot in Husbands and Wives is perfect. "I've re-learned to love my husband and it's the honeymoon all over again" is decidedly not.
Basically I am looking for well-written novels where a grown woman in a settled or dissatisfying long-term partnership (any gender) finds herself compromised by an intense, obsessive, overpowering and potentially undesired attraction to a new person (any gender). Things should Never Be The Same after the protagonist and the person to whom they are attracted meet. I'm interested in the writing on the feelings of the matter a lot more than I am in plot or setting. If half the novel takes place in her head that's completely fine and preferable to this being the seasoning on a novel with an unrelated plot. Preferably this is not a "women behaving badly"-style novel of an unstable woman engaging in multiple sordid infidelities, etc. Anything physical should be hard-won and sparse. But, honestly, I'll take a solid and coherent novel over sticking too closely to any of my preferences except where noted.
What I am looking for:
-Obsession, turmoil, dissatisfaction, longing, reluctance, struggle, confusion and other difficult, not-easily-settled emotions
-A female protagonist at least in her 30s if not older (necessarily)
-Preferably but not necessarily a female author
-A contemporary setting (post-WW2)
-Difficult personalities all around.
What I'm not looking for:
-A big focus on the protagonist's long-term partner as an individual. I don't want to read a novel about them.
-Unambiguously abusive partnerships or bright-line violations of consent. This one is a hard rule.
-Third person/authorial moralizing
-Heavy religious (esp. Christian) elements.
-A heavy focus on-page sex; a sex scene or two is fine but I'm def. not asking for erotic literature.
-Experimental fiction unless it's really, really worth the difficult read.
-Narratives that lead to a pat ending. I'm loathe to bring this up but the barely-an-ending to Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis' subplot in Husbands and Wives is perfect. "I've re-learned to love my husband and it's the honeymoon all over again" is decidedly not.
On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Kiki and Howard's marriage is extremely unsettling.
posted by cakebatter at 10:58 AM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by cakebatter at 10:58 AM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
This is not a novel, but can I offer an old BBC sitcom? Butterflies seems like exactly what you wanted -- early forties woman with annoyingly dull marriage contemplating affair with a friend.
posted by LizardBreath at 11:10 AM on March 6, 2019
posted by LizardBreath at 11:10 AM on March 6, 2019
Little Children by Tom Perrotta.
Many books by Meg Wolitzer.
posted by brookeb at 11:19 AM on March 6, 2019
Many books by Meg Wolitzer.
posted by brookeb at 11:19 AM on March 6, 2019
The War Between the Tates, by Alison Lurie.
posted by orange swan at 11:28 AM on March 6, 2019
posted by orange swan at 11:28 AM on March 6, 2019
Elena Ferrante's _The Days of Abandonment_ is about a husband leaving a wife after fifteen years (so the reverse of what you want), but otherwise fits the bill.
posted by crazy with stars at 12:52 PM on March 6, 2019
posted by crazy with stars at 12:52 PM on March 6, 2019
In case "contemporary setting" is negotiable:
Effie Briest, Theodor Fontane
Anna Karenina, Tolstoi
Madame Bovary, Flaubert. (That one does start with lots of pages about the husband though).
I wanted to recommend Fear of Flying, Erica Jong, but while it doesn't have blatant consent violations in either marriage or affair, there's definitely some of that in flashbacks, concerning a previous relationship, and also an upsetting episode towards the end, involving a stranger on a train. And frankly, I still don't quite know what to make of the ending. (Just looked it up on Wikipedia, to refresh my memory, and apparently she does reconcile with the husband, which I've completely forgotten about. Hadn't been the thing I took away from it at all.)
The Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante. There's a subplot where one of the two central female characters leaves her husband for her first love (second and third book). Lots of abuse and consent violations regarding various characters throughout the series though.
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald. About a community of housboat owners at the Thames in 1961. One of them, Nenna spends the larger part of the novel waiting for her estranged husband to return to her, but eventually starts an affair with a neighbour. It's a very tentative romance, because they're both unhappily married and not the types to plunge themselves into "sordid infidelities" at the first opportunity, so I think this is the example that most fits the requirement of anything physical being hard won and sparse. But there's defintely a lot of unrelated plot, and it's a bit of waste, if you're not in it for the setting, because the setting is argueably the main appeal here.
posted by sohalt at 1:52 PM on March 6, 2019
Effie Briest, Theodor Fontane
Anna Karenina, Tolstoi
Madame Bovary, Flaubert. (That one does start with lots of pages about the husband though).
I wanted to recommend Fear of Flying, Erica Jong, but while it doesn't have blatant consent violations in either marriage or affair, there's definitely some of that in flashbacks, concerning a previous relationship, and also an upsetting episode towards the end, involving a stranger on a train. And frankly, I still don't quite know what to make of the ending. (Just looked it up on Wikipedia, to refresh my memory, and apparently she does reconcile with the husband, which I've completely forgotten about. Hadn't been the thing I took away from it at all.)
The Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante. There's a subplot where one of the two central female characters leaves her husband for her first love (second and third book). Lots of abuse and consent violations regarding various characters throughout the series though.
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald. About a community of housboat owners at the Thames in 1961. One of them, Nenna spends the larger part of the novel waiting for her estranged husband to return to her, but eventually starts an affair with a neighbour. It's a very tentative romance, because they're both unhappily married and not the types to plunge themselves into "sordid infidelities" at the first opportunity, so I think this is the example that most fits the requirement of anything physical being hard won and sparse. But there's defintely a lot of unrelated plot, and it's a bit of waste, if you're not in it for the setting, because the setting is argueably the main appeal here.
posted by sohalt at 1:52 PM on March 6, 2019
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posted by schwinggg! at 10:38 AM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]