{"id":129939,"date":"2025-10-18T10:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T10:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/129939\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T10:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T10:06:08","slug":"biblioracle-on-the-ten-year-affair-by-erin-somers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/129939\/","title":{"rendered":"Biblioracle on “The Ten Year Affair” by Erin Somers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing recently in the New York Review of Books<\/a>, novelist and critic Adelle Waldman wonders about what happened to the \u201csuburban novel,\u201d as exemplified by writers like Richard Yates (\u201cRevolutionary Road\u201d), John Cheever, John Updike, and a bit later, Richard Ford (\u201cThe Sportswriter\u201d) and Rick Moody (\u201cThe Ice Storm\u201d).<\/p>\n

Waldman is not just talking about novels set in the suburbs, such as Jonathan Franzen\u2019s \u201cThe Corrections,\u201d but the \u201csuburban novel,\u201d that \u201cquestioned the idea that undergirds suburbia: that marriage-kids-house-car is the basis for a good life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just in time to challenge Waldman, we have Erin Somers\u2019 new novel, \u201cThe Ten Year Affair,\u201d which seems to fit the \u201csuburban novel\u201d to the letter. It manages to deftly balance humor and heart throughout as we see what the domestic life looks like for the millennial generation.<\/p>\n

Technically the characters don\u2019t live in the suburbs, instead existing in a small Hudson Valley town, that, thanks to the increasing cost of living with children in New York City, has become a place for city refugees, but the milieu is nonetheless familiar.<\/p>\n

The novel centers on Cora, a mother of two (including a new baby) married to Eliot. Cora meets Sam at a parents-and-babies class and shortly after conjures a fantasy affair with Sam that runs parallel with her more mundane life with Eliot.<\/p>\n

As Cora is moving through a meaningless job, and missing sex with Eliot, whose ardor has been dimmed by anti-depressants and a nightly dose of weed to help him sleep, she imagines a passionate sexual affair with Sam, meeting up in a hotel in a neighboring town to explore mutual carnal desires. The novel moves between these threads with ease as we become invested in both of Cora\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

In real life, the real Cora also grows closer to the real Sam, and while we understand that reality cannot become fantasy, that doesn\u2019t mean that a real affair couldn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

At its heart, \u201cThe Ten Year Affair\u201d is a comedy, with a number of set pieces that allows Somers to poke at the absurdities of upper middle class parenting, as in an early scene when Cora and Sam bond over their confused wonder at a woman from class they call \u201cbroccoli mom\u201d trying to command her infant to go on command into a portable toilet.<\/p>\n

Somers mines depth from important supporting characters, Eliot, and also Sam\u2019s wife, Lily. Eliot is a little anxious and insecure, but he also loves and trusts his wife and excels at his job as a book editor. Lily is a hard-driving professional, smart and spiky, but admirable in her willingness to be so. The families become fully entangled, causing further complications.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t sense that Somers set out to write a \u201csuburban novel\u201d so much as this is the kind of book that comes out when a sharp observer of human nature puts her mind to questioning what sorts of structures truly undergird the lives we choose to live.<\/p>\n

Or do we choose? This is part of what the novel explores: the inertia that can give way to ennui, which can then lead to choices that result in big consequences.<\/p>\n

As to where the \u201csuburban novel\u201d has been, I think it\u2019s merely a matter of having had to wait until the millennials of Somers\u2019 generation matured to the point where these questions have true salience. Gen Xers like Franzen were already convinced \u2014 including by writers like Cheever, Updike, et al. \u2014 that the suburban life was no good.<\/p>\n

By the end of the \u201cThe Ten Year Affair,\u201d we have a rich exploration of what a decent life might be.<\/p>\n

John Warner is the author of books including \u201cMore Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.\u201d You can find him at\u00a0biblioracle.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle<\/b><\/p>\n

John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you\u2019ve read.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cEvery Fire You Tend\u201d<\/strong> by Sema Kaygusuz
2. \u201cThe Premonition\u201d<\/strong> by Banana Yoshimoto
3. \u201cThere There\u201d by<\/strong> Tommy Orange
4. \u201cWandering Stars\u201d<\/strong> by Tommy Orange
5. \u201cInfinite Country\u201d<\/strong> by Patricia Engel <\/p>\n

\u2014 Tarah W., Lisbon, Portugal<\/p>\n

For Tarah, I\u2019m recommending a somewhat odd, but also affecting book, \u201cNegative Space\u201d by Gillian Linden.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cThe Waters\u201d<\/strong> by Bonnie Jo Campbell
2. \u201cDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead\u201d<\/strong> by Olga Tokarczuk
3. \u201cEducated\u201d<\/strong> by Tara Westover
4. \u201cUncommon Measure\u201d<\/strong> by Natalie Hodges
5. \u201cThe World That We Knew\u201d<\/strong> by Alice Hoffman<\/p>\n

\u2014 Lourdes G., Chicago<\/p>\n

I think Rachel Ingalls\u2019 slim, strange \u201cMrs. Caliban\u201d will connect with Lourdes.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cThe Measure\u201d<\/strong> by Nikki Erlick
2. \u201cWanted: Toddler\u2019s Personal Assistant\u201d<\/strong> by Stephanie Kiser
3. \u201cRemarkably Bright Creatures\u201d<\/strong> by Shelby Van Pelt
4. \u201cTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow\u201d<\/strong> by Gabrielle Zevin
5. \u201cThe Circus Train\u201d<\/strong> by Amita Parikh<\/p>\n

\u2014 Anna W., Normal<\/p>\n

I have yet to find the reader who isn\u2019t taken in by Karen Joy Fowler\u2019s \u201cWe Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,\u201d and I think Anna will be no exception.<\/p>\n

Get a reading from the Biblioracle<\/b><\/p>\n

Send a list of the last five books you\u2019ve read and your hometown to\u00a0biblioracle@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writing recently in the New York Review of Books, novelist and critic Adelle Waldman wonders about what happened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[359,18,117,19,17,2323,9852],"class_list":{"0":"post-129939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-things-to-do"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}