Affairs to remember: Infidelity in fiction
Two-time, run around, cuckold, make a fool of — there's as many words for cheating as there are for love.
For every great love story, there's another story of love lost. These books tell the stories of the cheaters and the cheated-on.
As you can probably guess, there aren't many happy endings.
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Feeling cheated: 10 books on infidelity
"Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy's tragic tale was inspired by a true series of events. In 1872, an article in the Russian newspapers caught the author's eye: A well-dressed 35-year-old woman had thrown herself in front of a train outside Moscow. She was identified as Anna Pirogova — the mistress of Tolstoy's neighbor.
The neighbor had recently ended the relationship, and Pirogova wrote him a note before she left for the train yard: "You are my murderer; be happy, if an assassin can be happy." Tolstoy himself went to view Pirogova's body after the accident. The story never left him; instead, he transformed the fatal affair into "Anna Karenina."
"Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert
Flaubert fills "Madame Bovary" with one infidelity after another. Emma Bovary chases wealth and romance, at the expense of her quiet life with her husband and daughter.
The novel caused such a stir when it was first published that Flaubert was brought up on obscenity charges. Rather than tainting the novel, his trial only made "Madame Bovary" more popular. He was ultimately acquitted in 1857, and the book became a bestseller.
"On Beauty" by Zadie Smith
Smith's novel follows the trials of the Belsey family: Howard, a white Englishman who teaches at a prestigious East Coast college; Kiki, his African-American wife who hails from Florida and works at a hospital; and their nearly grown children.
The family confronts the politics of academia, shifting views on race and the weight of infidelity that hangs over their home.
"I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You" by Courtney Maum
Is it possible to fall back in love with your spouse? Billed as a "reverse love story," Maum's novel follows a British artist who tries to woo back his wife after his affair turns sour.
"Among the Ten Thousand Things" by Julia Pierpont
Pierpont's debut novel landed on reading lists left and right this summer. It opens with an unforgettable scene: Jack Shanley's mistress prints out their lurid emails — months' worth of them — and mails them to his house. But it isn't his wife who opens the box, it's his children, 11 and 15.
That's the first blow; Pierpont lets readers watch the cracks inch out from there.
"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mixed in with the champagne and the parties is one zinger of an infidelity. Gatsby and Daisy just can't stay away from each other — and this case, not even the glitz and glamour can dress up the tragic affair.
"Dept. of Speculation" by Jenny Offill
This is a love story, told in fragments. The narrator unveils pieces of her life with her husband as they build a family — and then face having it wrenched apart. Offill's writing is utterly original with darkly comic segues into everything from Russian cosmonauts to Franz Kafka.
Released in 2014, it was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
"The Bridges of Madison County" by Robert James Waller
This has to be the most romantic book about bridges ever written — mostly because it's not about the bridges. When a photographer for National Geographic meets a lonely Italian housewife in Iowa, unexpected sparks fly.
Readers devoured the book when it hit shelves in 1992; it went on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time. (The Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep movie adaptation didn't hurt, either.)
"Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen
The tangled relations of the Berglund family are on full display in "Freedom," whether it's from the point of view of nosy neighbors or Patty Berglund's own diary.
Is Patty and Walter's marriage just a case of Patty giving in? And what about her long-harbored love for her husband's college roommate? Franzen explores just how much emotional glue it takes to piece a broken marriage back together again.
"The Heart of the Matter" by Graham Greene
Greene's tale of love lost and gained in Freetown, Sierra Leone, has held a place in readers' hearts for over 50 years. A British intelligence officer finds himself in a marriage with a woman he does not love, and falls for a younger woman — the survivor of a shipwreck.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked the book at number 40 on a list of its list of 100 Best Novels.