Damage

At 186 pages, this is arguably more of a novella than a novel. Its fundamental plot is straightforward: our unnamed narrator is a man in his 50s who has lived a “correct”, successful life. He's a doctor, and a member of Parliament on the rise. He has a beautiful wife and their two children are in their 20s, on their way to success themselves. And then he meets Anna, his son's new girlfriend, and nothing is the same. The two begin an affair, and he becomes completely obsessed with her even as her relationship with his son becomes serious and heads towards marriage. It is not a spoiler to say that tragedy strikes, as the book is narrated from the present about the past and so it is obvious that things have gone badly awry from the outset. It's definitely a page-turner, with a propulsive momentum that for me could not ultimately disguise the repetitiveness of the narrative. The narrator has an encounter with Anna, reiterates how hollow and empty his “real” life feels away from her, works to deceive his loved ones to preserve that real life even in spite of its emptiness, lather rinse repeat. The character development isn't very strong and it's never all that clear what's so compelling about Anna although she's clearly meant to be beguiling. The prose is often striking and was really the highlight of the book for me, but overall I found it uneven and wonder if it might have been better if it had been even shorter.