The two narratives rhyme in places, or echo each other. Elkin uses the dual structure as a way of speaking to the universality of these problems, their intractability, and to relate them to everyday life. Placed within a world of home repairs and wall calendars and glasses in the sink, the problems of longtime monogamy are presented as ordinary features of life.
Each generation writes their own novels of domestic repression. As millennials settle into marriage, and as those marriages fray, we will surely only see more. The millennial version tends to explore new relationship models, with polyamory emerging as a big theme, an idealised fix-all for the problem of monogamy that ends up creating problems of its own. Promisingly, it also tends to centre women and allows them to be fallible, funny and dynamic.
The enduring appeal of the genre might be as simple as voyeurism, but I think it also has to do with ever-evolving perspectives on longing, ageing and fear of death. “The most interesting part of infidelity isn’t will they or won’t they,” remarks a character in Scaffolding. “It’s everything else around it.”
The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers is published by Canongate. To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
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Well, actually all of you need to read my book: POLYGAMY TODAY, Available on Amazon.
Categories: Book Review, Islam And Polygmay