The Mirror in the Well

A woman's sexual awakening is a tragedy when the woman is married to someone other than the man who awakens her. But until then, her marriage, now doomed, was a sleepwalker's tragedy. This novel will shock and offend some readers. Unapologetically explicit in its language, extreme in some of the acts it catalogues, it makes no pretense of submission to middle-class decency, let alone to expectations of happy endings. All three people in this love triangle are flawed, damaged, human. Things fall apart, and the resolution is unclear. Why does she do it? Why should we read it? The answer is one word: Ecstasy. Micheline Aharonian Marcom has a genius for language that is not only beautiful in and of itself, but also engages the heart. Lusher than Marguerite Duras, more tender and erotic than Cormac McCarthy, but nearly as dark, this is a narrative masterpiece.

A woman's sexual awakening is a tragedy when the woman is married to someone other than the man who awakens her. But until then, her marriage, now doomed, was a sleepwalker's tragedy. This novel will shock and offend some readers. Unapologetically explicit in its language, extreme in some of the acts it catalogues, it makes no pretense of submission to middle-class decency, let alone to expectations of happy endings. All three people in this love triangle are flawed, damaged, human. Things fall apart, and the resolution is unclear. Why does she do it? Why should we read it? The answer is one word: Ecstasy. Micheline Aharonian Marcom has a genius for language that is not only beautiful in and of itself, but also engages the heart. Lusher than Marguerite Duras, more tender and erotic than Cormac McCarthy, but nearly as dark, this is a narrative masterpiece.

Publishers Weekly

Marcom's three previous (and provocative) novels earned her much critical acclaim, but none shocks the reader like her intensely raw latest endeavor. This short novel is the story of a nameless woman and her lover and husband, who are intricately involved in the oscillating pleasure and angst of passion. The text is filled with unflinchingly rendered sex scenes, stream of consciousness, mythology, dreams and dreamlike realities, all blurred into each other, resulting in a narrative that portrays with disturbing accuracy the intimate behaviors and thoughts of lovers. Its explicit language, an invigorating mix of debauchery and poetic complexity, is disturbing at times, as in episodes of sexual violence or of uncommon acts (urine-drinking, for instance). Through this vivid imagery, Marcom gives voice to the essence of obsession and sexuality while tracing the deterioration of relationships. This novel is a cultural, feminist and human statement, but at its core, it is an unrestrained exploration of the intersection of emotion and physical desires. (Sept.)

Micheline Aharonian Marcom is the author of Three Apples Fell from Heaven, which was a New York Times Notable Book. The Daydreaming Boy won the 2005 PEN/USA Award in fiction and was named a best book by the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. The third book in the trilogy, Draining the Sea, was published in March 2008. Marcom received a Lannan Literary Fellowship in 2004 and a Whiting Writers' Award in 2006.