Asymmetry

I can think of few books that have stayed with me the way Lisa Halliday's "Asymmetry" has. A 2018 novel in three parts, it begins with Alice who works for a publishing house and her affair with Ezra Blazer (a not-so-well disguised Philip Roth). Ezra is a SOB but there were sections of the book where I actually felt badly for the character. Old and in poor health, he does his best to keep Alice around through gifts and guilt, but never allows her to forget his stature. In the second section, Amar, a US citizen of Kurdish descent is detained at Heathrow remembering his brother who has disappeared. In the third section, Ezra is a guest on BBC Desert Island Discs, where he holds forth on classical music, his "accidental" family (the result of an affair), and the news that Alice's novel about Amar is going to be really big. So many "asymmetries" in this one that I will leave it to you to find them. This is a marvelous work.

I initially read this work during the pandemic but I'm looking for opportunities to teach it in a class.