• The Affairs of Others

  • A Novel
  • By: Amy Grace Loyd
  • Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
  • Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars (42 ratings)

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The Affairs of Others  By  cover art

The Affairs of Others

By: Amy Grace Loyd
Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
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Publisher's summary

A MESMERIZING DEBUT NOVEL ABOUT A YOUNG WOMAN, HAUNTED BY LOSS, WHO REDISCOVERS PASSION AND POSSIBILITY WHEN SHE'S DRAWN INTO THE TANGLED LIVES OF HER NEIGHBORS

Five years after her young husband's death, Celia Cassill has moved from one Brooklyn neighborhood to another, but she has not moved on. The owner of a small apartment building, she has chosen her tenants for their ability to respect one another's privacy. Celia believes in boundaries, solitude, that she has a right to her ghosts. She is determined to live a life at a remove from the chaos and competition of modern life. Everything changes with the arrival of a new tenant, Hope, a dazzling woman of a certain age on the run from her husband's recent betrayal. When Hope begins a torrid and noisy affair, and another tenant mysteriously disappears, the carefully constructed walls of Celia's world are tested and the sanctity of her building is shattered—through violence and sex, in turns tender and dark. Ultimately, Celia and her tenants are forced to abandon their separate spaces for a far more intimate one, leading to a surprising conclusion and the promise of genuine joy.

Amy Grace Loyd investigates interior spaces of the body and the New York warrens in which her characters live, offering a startling emotional honesty about the traffic between men and women. The Affairs of Others is a story about the irrepressibility of life and desire, no matter the sorrows or obstacles.

©2013 Amy Grace Loyd (P)2013 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“From start to finish, Loyd's prose flows exquisitely through the story, as she limns the depths of the protagonist's mind, the complexity of human intimacy, and the idiosyncrasies of each new character with the grace of a seasoned novelist.” —Vanity Fair

“Moody, sensual…Loyd succeeds at the most difficult task for such a circumscribed setting--making the granular details of her characters' travails feel as though they added up to more than the sum of their parts. Celia's emotional breakthrough, when it comes, reads as both important and true.” —The New Yorker

“For first-time novelist Amy Grace Loyd, an apartment building is not simply housing. It is also a metaphor for the paradoxical isolation and proximity we feel among others...With forceful, sensual prose (the author is captivated by the scents of people and places), Loyd allows Celia to discover that ‘life had as many gains as losses as long as we were willing to tally them.'” —O, The Oprah Magazine

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A worthy read!

Really enjoyed this book. Intrigued me in that voyeurism akin to Rear Window. It was slightly dark but seriously endearing. Appealed to what is both light and dark in us all.

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