“An unforgettable account of a forbidden romance.” – Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Patsy
“Moving and memorable.” – Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion
“Sensual and wise.” – Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
A novel about a young woman’s life-altering affair with a much older, married woman.
Mallory is a freshman in college when she meets the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university’s gym, immediately entranced by this elegant, older person, whom she later learns is married and works at the school. Before long, they begin a clandestine affair. Self-possessed, successful, brilliant, and aloof, the woman absolutely consumes Mallory, who is still reeling from her mother’s death a few months earlier. Mallory retreats from the rest of the world and into a relationship with this melancholy, elusive woman she admires so much yet who can never be fully hers, solidifying a sense of solitude that has both haunted and soothed her as long as she can remember.
Years after the affair has ended, Mallory must decide whether to stay safely in this isolation, this constructed loneliness, or to step fully into the world and confront what the woman meant to her, for better or worse. This simmering, unsettling debut novel reveals the consequences of desire and influence, portraying two women whose lives have been transformed by love, loss, and secrecy.
“An unforgettable account of a forbidden romance.” – Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Patsy
“Moving and memorable.” – Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion
“Sensual and wise.” – Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
A novel about a young woman’s life-altering affair with a much older, married woman.
Mallory is a freshman in college when she meets the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university’s gym, immediately entranced by this elegant, older person, whom she later learns is married and works at the school. Before long, they begin a clandestine affair. Self-possessed, successful, brilliant, and aloof, the woman absolutely consumes Mallory, who is still reeling from her mother’s death a few months earlier. Mallory retreats from the rest of the world and into a relationship with this melancholy, elusive woman she admires so much yet who can never be fully hers, solidifying a sense of solitude that has both haunted and soothed her as long as she can remember.
Years after the affair has ended, Mallory must decide whether to stay safely in this isolation, this constructed loneliness, or to step fully into the world and confront what the woman meant to her, for better or worse. This simmering, unsettling debut novel reveals the consequences of desire and influence, portraying two women whose lives have been transformed by love, loss, and secrecy.
Reviews-
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Starred review from March 14, 2022
Hart debuts with a transfixing queer coming-of-age novel about a woman’s affair with a much older professor. Mallory Green is in her first year at a college on Long Island shortly after her mother’s death from cancer in 2008. There, she becomes fixated on a never-named woman who teaches children’s literature. The professor, who is brusque but encouraging in their conversations, invites Mallory over for dinner. Her husband is away, and she makes plain her own attraction to Mallory. Despite feeling “embarrassed, as if she’d written an intense journal entry that she now had to read aloud,” Mallory plunges into an affair with her. The woman ends it when her professor husband returns at the end of the semester, leaving Mallory floundering as she attempts to date a male student and later drifts through postgraduation life in New York City. A flashback to Mallory’s youth traces her close friendship with a neighbor girl, saturated with frustrated desire. The professor’s reappearance four years after graduation, just as Mallory is settling into a new relationship, opens old wounds. Mallory’s intense interiority and self-consciousness will remind readers of Sally Rooney’s work, and Hart’s prose is delicate and piercing. This is auspicious and breathtaking. Agent: Sarah Burnes, Gernert Company. -
June 1, 2022
College freshman Mallory meets an older woman at her university gym. She turns out to be a professor at the university where Mallory is a student, and Mallory is drawn in by the woman's brilliance, eccentricities, and aloofness toward the world. Still grieving the recent death of her mother, Mallory and the mysterious woman form a bond based on mutual losses. Though the affair is short-lived, the seductive tension of the relationship affects Mallory, her life, and her relationships for years to come. The na�vet� of Mallory and the seductiveness of the woman are brilliantly portrayed by narrator Barrie Kreinik. The novel handles the topics of young love, grief, power imbalance, and regret in a sensitive and subtle manner, often letting listeners come to their own conclusions. VERDICT This debut novel packs an emotional punch, exploring how relationships affect the people we become and the choices we make throughout our lives.--Elyssa Everling
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Told in three arresting sections, this poignant novel details a life-changing affair between 19-year-old Mallory and an older, married woman who is a professor at her college. Kreinik's delicate narration mimics the sparse beauty of Hart's prose. She lingers on scenes and sentences, letting them stretch out in time, as they do for Mallory. Though this intensely interior story is focused on Mallory's inner turmoil, Kreinik excels at bringing the characters to life. She captures Mallory's yearning to be loved and her increasing feelings of desperation. Her lover, whom Mallory refers to only as "the woman," has a lilting German accent--polished and assured, at times cutting, at times playful. The differences between them--and maybe what draws them to each other--become powerfully obvious in Kreinik's performance. L.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
