An erotically charged debut—with a psychological acumen reminiscent of Paula Fox—about the complications of intimacy and infidelity.
Nina and Tony are twenty years into a turbulent marriage-like relationship. Her world is centered at home in rural Pennsylvania: she builds intricate kinetic toys, her solitude both solace and confinement. He is a painter, in New York much of the time. Bill, the ailing caretaker of a nearby farm, a virtual stranger to Nina, tells her the story of his affair with his brother's wife forty years before. In intertwining narratives, we see how Bill's troubled life unfolded, and how his story comes to obsess Nina, triggering her own memories: of fiery years with Tony, of their infidelities and ineluctable passion for each other, and of her struggle with the boundaries of the relationship—real and imagined.