Love is… Complicated: 19 Fiction and Nonfiction Books About Affairs
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Love is a very complicated thing, and the many books about affairs and other failings of the heart are a testament to this.
Once upon a time, the prince and princess would get married and live happily ever after. The end. But the endings aren’t so simple. Marriage is complex. It is not the end but yet another beginning. One that leads to a life of beauty and interdependence but also vulnerability and disappointments.
I have a confession to make: I get scared when a couple gets married either in the beginning or the middle of the book. When a couple is married and there are still more pages to be read, you can guarantee problems are on the horizon and they often come in the form of an affair. Although there are many other marriage problems authors could write about, books about affairs seem to be most popular.
The reasons behind affairs are multitudinous and not all signify the end of the marriage. In novels, the reader experiences a plethora of motivations and consequences. In nonfiction, readers learn how other’s have dealt with affairs and are given tools with which to cope.
The list below features ten fiction books exploring the complicated nature of an extra-marital affair. They explore its effects on the members involved from multiple points of view. This is followed by a list of nine nonfiction books about affairs, ranging from memoir to self-help.
Probably one of the most popular of Adichie’s books. This book speaks poignantly on race, especially what it means to be black in America and the UK. But underneath the social commentary, this is a love story. It’s a love story between a man and a woman who are wrenched apart and who do not allow anything as trivial as marriage to stand between their being together again.
The 2019 Women’s Prize winner is a narrative on affairs that does not allow the reader to choose sides. Or at least makes it very difficult. Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are on track to live happily ever after until Roy is sentenced to serve time for a crime he didn’t commit. Celestial is forced to choose between putting her life on hold and waiting for the years until Roy’s release or learning to not just survive but thrive.
The powerful bestseller about a woman who’s mental health deteriorates dramatically when her husband leaves her for a younger woman.
Set against the backdrop of President Obama’s victory, two couples find themselves on the brink of revolution or acceptance. Melissa and Michael grapple with a new baby and redefined marital roles while Stephanie tries to get Damian to open up about the death of his father. When you can’t turn to your spouse, you find someone else.
After hearing that 65% of married women cheat on their husbands, Diane Shader Smith decided to sit with 150 women to try and discover why. Undressing Infidelity recounts the stories of 12 women, from Midwestern mums to Manhattan execs, who chose to be unfaithful and their reasons why.
Couples therapist Esther Perel digs deep into the taboo subject of affairs and why they are a universal practice, even within the happiest of marriages. What can affairs tell us about the intricacies of human relationships and love?
Chong tells the true story of her grandmother, who was taken to the New World as a concubine to a man who left his wife and children behind in China, and how she discovered the existence of this whole other family years later.
Love Warrior is the story of a marriage imploding on itself and of the healing that goes into rebuilding and restoring to once again allow yourself the hope of falling in love.
