Marriage, Infidelity, and Millennial Disillusionment with Erin Somers

Erin Somers' new novel, The Ten Year Affair is a story about Millennial disillusionment (and extramarital sex). The New Yorker called it “intoxicating” and W praised the book for its “sometimes mocking examination of young middle age.” I wanted to speak with Erin because her characters reflect a sense of grown-up melancholy arising when goals like home ownership, careers, and parenthood don’t provide the fulfillment that was expected of them. So what do we do, she asks implicitly, when we find ourselves in a life designed to have meaning but does not deliver on that promise? Her characters also embody the impossible and contradictory messages society has imposed on gender roles for her generation. For men: be sensitive, inclusive, do half the housework, but still make a lot of money. For women: go conquer the corporate world while simultaneously being a present, nurturing mother and a sensual, doting wife. To me, this issue—even more than the deliciously provocative infidelity—is what has me continuing to think about the book, weeks after I finished it. Erin's writing and reportage has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Esquire, GQ, The Nation, The New Republic, and elsewhere. Vogue named her first novel, Stay Up With Hugo Best, to their list of the Best Books of the Year for 2019.

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