Infidelity

This novel probes the reckless impulses behind an extramarital affair, from an author who is “an heir to Updike and Cheever” (Robert Wiersema, author of Bedtime Story and Before I Wake)

Ronnie is a hairdresser who has tried to become a better person to please her fiancé — healthier, well behaved, free of her old bad habits like smoking cigarettes, eating red meat, and indulging in the occasional line of cocaine. As the wedding date approaches — and the pressure to get pregnant intensifies — she finds herself with a sense of unsettled yearning. Then, at a party her husband-to-be is catering, she meets Charlie.

An anxiety-ridden, award-winning writer, Charlie feels suffocated by his bread-winning wife and the needs of his autistic child. His torrid affair with Ronnie plays out on office desks and in Toronto hotel rooms. Each is getting something from the other, but as the relationship grows ever riskier, they must decide what it is they truly want, and truly need, and what they’re willing to sacrifice to get it.