6 Smart and Sexy Books on International Affairs
Love them or love to hate them, love affairs make for engaging literature. Maybe it’s the sexual tension or the constant risk of exposure. Maybe it’s the opportunity for judgment or vicarious indulgence, or maybe it’s just the desire to understand what could lead someone—especially an otherwise “good woman”—down such a risky path. As someone whose debut novel centers on an affair between two jet-setting co-workers, I know one thing for sure: If you want a spirited book club discussion, choose forbidden love.
Here are some great reads that feature international affairs worth talking about:
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
A shrewd yet heartfelt work of literature disguised as a Cold-War spy novel set in both New York City and Burkina Faso.
Inspired by true events, the novel opens in 1986 New York, where sidelined FBI agent Marie Mitchell is offered a chance to resurrect her career by seducing Burkina Faso’s revolutionary president, Thomas Sankara. After infiltrating his inner circle and his heart, she’s torn between love, moral conviction, and how much she owes the U.S. Besides being taken by the story itself, I was impressed by the humility and empathy Wilkinson shows in her portrayal of the history and people of Burkina Faso. If I could, I’d make American Spy required reading for anyone writing about travel or culture.
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
A captivating novel about a Bangladeshi woman whose life is upended twice: first when she moves to London for an arranged marriage, and next when she falls in love with a younger man.
An arranged marriage takes Nazneen from her village in Bangladesh to a high-rise block of flats in East London. After years of dutiful marriage and motherhood, she falls hard and fast for a young political activist and begins questioning her every belief. For whatever it’s worth, I found Brick Lane to be a moving tribute to a community as complex and sympathetic as any other. I lived in London when I read it for the first time and appreciated seeing a multifaceted portrait of a neighborhood known primarily for its curry houses and trendy nightclubs. But both the novel and the film it inspired have been the subject of ire for some Brick Lane residents who felt they were portrayed negatively. Author Monica Ali’s response in The Guardian offers valuable insight into the thorny subject of portraying culture.
An Italian Affair by Laura Fraser
This vacation fling turned epic love affair hits that sweet spot between indulgent beach read and literary memoir.
When Laura Fraser’s husband leaves her for another woman, she takes a spontaneous trip to Italy to mend her broken heart. While on the island of Ischia, she has a fling with a married man from Paris. To their surprise, the brief liaison turns into a years-long transatlantic love affair that transforms Laura’s relationship with herself. As they rendezvous in London, Marrakech, Milan, the Aeolian Islands, and San Francisco, Fraser explores what it means to be an independent woman. The second-person perspective may take a little getting used to, but a few pages in, you’ll be captivated.
Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum
Set in Zurich, the sexually explicit debut novel by poet Jill Alexander Essbaum explores the unraveling of a woman whose picture-perfect life is no longer enough.
After marrying a Swiss banker, American Anna Benz ends up bored, depressed, and lonely in the blandest of Zurich suburbs, where “a smile will give you away as an American.” She spends her days trying to be a good wife and mother while her emotionally-absent husband focuses on his career, which fortunately provides them a very comfortable living. Ensconced in that comfort, Anna is lulled into accepting a half-life she can’t see her way out of. Instead, she tries to hold things together with brief moments of escape and solace in the arms of admiring men. Like Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina, to whom this Anna is often compared, her choices lead to ruin. But if there is a moral, it is of a different tenor. Essbaum does not suggest women lie in the beds we make. She asks us to admit it already—being a good wife just isn’t enough.
This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park
A deeply moving, epic love story set in post-war South Korea. Here’s all you need to know about my take: As soon as I read the last page, I flipped back to the first and started reading it again.
Soo-Ja Choi dreams of becoming a diplomat and helping usher in a modern, post-war Korea. Instead she’s tricked into a suffocating life of servitude to her husband Min and his parents. She tries desperately to find meaning in a life of self-sacrifice, tradition, and devotion to her beloved daughter. Spoiler—it doesn’t work. She is still haunted by her old dreams, and her enduring passion for Yul, the man she truly loves. Set between Daegu, Seoul, and Los Angeles, This Burns My Heart is a passionate story of yearning and redemption that asks how much of her heart a woman can hide before she breaks.
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
For one daring Jamaican woman, the lure of lost love and the promise of a better life in America are worth leaving her country, and even her child.
At 28, Patsy longs to escape a dead-end job and single motherhood in Jamaica. The only thing she wants more is to reunite with Cicely, the friend and secret lover who has moved to Brooklyn. When Patsy is granted a tourist visa to the U.S., she leaves her daughter behind and runs to a place where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But life in New York is not as she envisioned. Cicely will not leave her abusive but financially secure husband, and as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy can only find precarious employment as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Will it be possible for her to make a fulfilling life for herself? And even if she can, will her daughter ever forgive her?
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