A young editorial assistant, Alice, sits in a famous novelist’s apartment. He can’t drink because of all his medications, but he offers white wine and a cookie. She’s grateful, but the pairing is gross. The writer finds her some bourbon. It burns. That’s better.
In Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, Asymmetry, yes, the protagonist’s much-older love interest bears a close resemblance to Philip Roth, whom the author dated when she was in her twenties and he was very much not in his twenties.
What matters more is that, during their days of ice cream and baseball and news of the Iraq invasion, Alice figures out she wants to be a writer, too—even as she worries he has already said what could be said. Then she realizes she cannot be a writer, cannot become who she is, while also living in the hunched shadow of his failing body.
And just before we’re halfway through the book: record scratch.
Now we listen as Amar, an Iraqi-American, gets pulled aside by security at Heathrow Airport. It’s 2008, and he’s just trying to get to Kurdistan to visit his brother. The logistics of the trip are complicated by America’s invasion of Iraq. Security has many questions, but few answers.
The stories of Alice and Amar harmonize so eloquently it’s like music. Then part three comes along: It’s about music, and about the book you’re holding. PLEASE READ
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday, from Simon & Schuster
