Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian

When two married professors tiptoe toward infidelity, their transgressions are brought to light in a graduate student’s searing thesis project.

Simone is the star of Edwards University’s creative writing department: renowned Woolf scholar, grief memoirist, and campus sex icon. Her less glamorous and ostensibly devoted husband, Ethan, is a forgotten novelist and lecturer in the same department. According to Simone and Ethan, and everyone on campus, their marriage is perfect. That is, until Ethan sleeps with the department administrative assistant, Abigail, and the couple’s faith in their flawless relationship is rattled.

Simone, meanwhile, has secrets of her own. While Ethan’s away for the summer, she grows inordinately close with her advisee, graduate student Roberta “Robbie” Green. In Robbie, Simone finds a new running partner, confidante, and disciple—or so she believes. Behind Simone’s back, Robbie fictionalizes her mentor’s marriage in a breathtakingly invasive MFA thesis. Determined to tell her version of the story, Robbie paints a revealing portrait of Simone, Ethan, Abigail, and even herself, scratching at the very surface of what may—or may not—be the truth.

Simultaneously provocative and tender, Seduction Theory exposes the intoxicating nature of power and attraction, and is a masterful demonstration of how love and betrayal can coexist.

REVIEWS

“A campus novel for our times…Sharply funny.”―New York Magazine

“Hotly anticipated…When one half of a perfect couple is a scholarly superstar and the other is barely remembered for a long-ago novel, things can go wrong pretty easily. Add in an affair and a roman a clef, and it’s on.”―Boston Globe

"In lesser hands, the story of husband and wife getting a mid-marriage itch for adventure could be banal, but Adrian (via Roberta) probes the hearts and minds of her characters in a way that reveals the combination of desire and stupidity that rests in all of our hearts.”―The Chicago Tribune

PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 978-0316584524
Pages: 224