What to read to understand affairs

Three books that explore the passion and pain of extramarital relations

Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux (1991)

Utterly unflinching in its portrayal of the two years Annie Ernaux spent in the grips of an all-consuming affair with a married Russian diplomat in Paris, Simple Passion details its highs and lows: magical thinking, the obsessive attention to detail, and the sheer tedium of waiting, punctuated with afternoons of ecstasy. It’s an absorbing portrayal of passion’s propulsive power, with moments recorded in painstaking detail, swinging from the banal and even abject to the divine.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1951)

Betrayal, jealousy, lust and faith – it all goes hard in Graham Greene’s classic novel, based on his own affair with Lady Catherine Walston, to whom he dedicates the book. We are taken on a journey, with the story of obsessive Maurice hiring a detective to monitor his former lover, Sarah, changing partway through into something altogether more unexpected. With the introduction of Sarah’s perspective, the narrative transforms from the bodily to something more spiritual – and devastating.

Sea State by Tabitha Lasley (2021)

Told in wry, intimate prose, Sea State is one of my favourite memoirs of recent years. Finding herself adrift in Aberdeen after a breakup, ostensibly to interview oil rig workers, Lasley falls for the first man she speaks to, a withdrawn rigger named Caden, who has a wife and children at home. In this liminal world of offshore work and general life transience, what follows is a fascinating account of modern masculinity, the affair itself, and what it means to attempt to moor one’s life to a fantasy.

Sophie Mackintosh’s new novel, Permanence, is published by Hamish Hamilton (£18.99). Order a copy from The Observer Shop for £17.09. Delivery charges may apply

Photograph by Mark Peterson/Corbis via Getty Image