The Ten Year Affair
Somers...is adept at...ironically inflected, socially observant writing ... This is to say that if the novel’s prose doesn’t plumb the depths of human character, it is sociologically acute and slyly entertaining ... As the story progresses, it develops a power that has less to do with Somers’s depictions of creative-class millennials’ tics than with her earnest, intelligent portrayals of domestic life. She retains the wit, the smart and pithy writing, but lets up on the knowingness, the insidery pontificating ... What Somers does give us of that reality is mostly — except when it briefly devolves into pure fantasy — plausible and compelling, and it’s fun to see how, over time, those worlds converge and then move apart again, often in unexpected ways ... A narrative turn at the end of the novel felt a little undercooked to this reader, a means of tying up the story and imprinting it with a clear, therapeutically inflected takeaway about what was really motivating Cora all along ... Still, Somers’s crisp writing makes for a humane, frequently funny and very readable novel.
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Somers mines depth from important supporting characters ... We have a rich exploration of what a decent life might be.
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Funny, sexy, depressing, and realistic ... Somers’ observational style and deadpan comedy make Cora’s mess both relatable and unenviable as she navigates the subtle madness of marital commitment, the alienation of motherhood, and the absurdity of life in general.
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