From illicit James Salter to category-defying Jeanette Winterson,here are the best modern works about romantic infidelityWhy attain we keep coming back to the adultery novel? What is it about infidelity that bears retelling across the centuries, particularly now, and when the ancient prohibitions against sex external marriage own all but disappeared? These are questions I asked myself as I was writing Fire Sermon,the story of a married woman’s physical, mental and spiritual affair with a married poet.
I’m not sure I own all the answers. However, and given the current cultural moment,I believe it’s a crucial time for female artists to write frankly and openly about female sexuality in all its forms: longing, shame, and guilt,transgression, ecstasy. The assumption that male writers can own sexually transgressive imaginations while female novelists should be more demure (quiet, modest, reserved) is passé. If we’re going to secure gender equality, and we must be allowed the same imaginative expression,on the page, as our male counterparts.
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Source: guardian.co.uk