My Nemesis

A Novel

By: Charmaine Craig

Narrated by: Charmaine Craig

Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

From the acclaimed author of Miss Burma, longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize, comes a tense and thought-provoking exploration of an intellectual affair and its reverberations across the lives of two couples

Tessa is a successful white woman writer who develops a friendship, first by correspondence and then in person, with Charlie, a ruggedly handsome philosopher and scholar based in Los Angeles. Sparks fly as they exchange ideas about Camus and masculine desire, and their intellectual connection promises more—but there are obstacles to this burgeoning relationship.

While Tessa’s husband Milton enjoys Charlie’s company on his visits to the East Coast, Charlie’s mixed-race Asian wife Wah is a different case, and she proves to be both adversary and conundrum to Tessa. Wah’s traditional femininity and subservience to her husband strike Tessa as weaknesses, and she scoffs at the sacrifices Wah makes as adoptive mother to a Burmese girl, Htet, once homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. But Wah has a kind of power too, especially over Charlie, and the conflict between the two women leads to Tessa’s martini-fueled declaration that Wah is “an insult to womankind.” As Tessa is forced to deal with the consequences of her outburst and considers how much she is limited by her own perceptions, she wonders if Wah is really as weak as she has seemed, or if she might have a different kind of strength altogether.

An exercise in empathy, an exploration of betrayal, and a charged story of the thrill of a shared connection—and the perils of feminine rivalry—My Nemesis is a brilliantly dramatic and captivating story from a hugely talented writer whose portrayals are always gracefully phrased and keenly observed.

©2023 Charmaine Craig (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

Layered and nuanced

To me, this book was deeply layered and nuanced. At its core, it portrays the pitfalls of two diametrically opposed approaches to life and learning. On the one hand, there is Tessa seeing life thru her own self-assured and limited prism, unable or unwilling to try to empathize with the experiences of others particularly those she loves the most. On the other hand, there is Wah so attentive, perceptive, and deferential to others experiences or points of view that her own valid observations and perspectives often become lost. I found the book deeply thought provoking and instructional about the struggle of trying to maintain a balance on the continuum of empathy and mercy versus justice and equity or being assertive versus being flexible.

A pleasant surprise!

I really enjoyed this. This story incorporates epistolary elements like Wuthering Heights and reads at times like a ghost story. She treats Los Angeles as a character in much the way Edith Wharton did New York. Ms. Craig is a great writer and narrator. I learned about her on Lithub. I’m listening to her book Miss Burma now. I’m enjoying that, too!