'Asymmetry' Is A Guide To Being Bigger Than Yourself
At first, Lisa Halliday's novel seems too familiar: It's about a young would-be writer who has an affair with a famous older man. But partway through, it turns into something else, something new.
At first, Asymmetry seems like a story we've heard before: Young, pretty would-be writer Alice launches an affair with Ezra, a literary celebrity several decades her senior. He gets a stent, she gets an abortion, he teaches her to pronounce Camus ("It's CA-MOO, sweetheart"), she picks up his meds, he calls her a "good girl," she calls him "cradle robber."
For the first few chapters, it seemed too tired and too insular a story to hear again
