Review: "Indiscretion" by Charles Dubow

Title: Indiscretion
Author: Charles Dubow
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Date of Publication: July 9, 2013
Pages: 400

How I Heard About It: Thanks so much to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing a free review copy. More info about the rest of the book blog tour can be found here.

Two Sentence Summary: A group of wealthy friends vacation in the Hamptons for the summer.  The dynamic of their social sphere begins a downward spiral when young, gorgeous Claire becomes a part of the infrastructure and sets her sights on (married) author Harry Winslow.

"He was not hard to love. And she, like so many of the young, was looking for a shortcut, an edge over the competition, always in a hurry, not yet realizing there is no benefit in speeding up the journey, that the destination is not the point but merely part of the process."

 

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Things I Think: This is not an unfamiliar story: a perfect couple (Maddy and Harry Winslow), completely content in their marriage and revered by their peers; the unexpected entrance of a sweet young thing, who at first worships the pair as mentors but falls decidedly in love with the husband; the husband's seemingly epic struggle to resist, his ultimate failure, and the resultant fireworks of disaster when everything inevitably comes to light.

For this reason alone, I nearly failed to complete "Indiscretion." I feel like I've read this story, or seen it performed, dozens upon dozens of times. Little about Dubow's use of this classic formula made it unique from any other rendition of the age-old midlife crisis affair saga, and the unfolding of anticipated event after anticipated event occurred so slowly that sticking with this book was a struggle. 

In the last fifty pages or so, we are finally granted a left-turn from the plodding plot. But it takes so long to get to this meaty plot point, I almost didn't make it. 

The reason I hung on was Dubow's beautiful prose. His sentences are perfectly crafted, his vocabulary impeccable. Additionally, his narration choices (which continue to be compared to those of "The Great Gatsby") are a point of interest. Dubow clearly has an immense amount of technical skill, but in this case, it over-shone the novel's attempts at creativity.