Charmaine Craig’s previous books were lavishly detailed historical epics. By contrast, her third novel is taut, bristling and psychologically profound
and the “absurdities of middle age”, Tessa has a crush on a new friend, a philosophy professor named Charlie. Both are married, but there is a charge to their long, wine-soaked, moonlit chats whenever one visits the other, either in Los Angeles or New York. For reasons both self-serving and ostensibly feminist, Tessa takes a dim view of Charlie’s wife, Wah, who is somehow too sincere, too feminine, too subservient and wears “too floral” dresses.
“My Nemesis”, Charmaine Craig’s taut, bristling and psychologically profound third novel, is the story of a seductive friendship that threatens to upend two homes. But it is really about the unwieldy needs and desires of middle age, “with death looming on one side, disappointment on the other, and nothing but a Sisyphean wheel of activities supporting the structure of one’s present”.
All this is a departure for Ms Craig. Her previous novels were lavishly detailed historical epics; “Miss Burma” was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Slimmer, punchier and more tightly wound, “My Nemesis” highlights her talent for capturing the minutiae of interpersonal drama.
Associating femininity with weakness, Tessa is repulsed by Charlie’s wistful description of Wah as “soft, feminine”. Yet she senses that there is something cruel and petulant about her own efforts to curdle Charlie’s perception of his wife. She recalls a time as a child when a neighbourhood friend asked for help stoning a crow. “It fluttered in a harrowing circle on the ground, calling to us, to anyone, for help,” Tessa remembers.
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