num_pages: 224
description: A novel about a young woman's life-altering affair with a much older married woman.Mallory is a freshman in college reeling from her mother's recent death when she encounters the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university's gym immediately entranced. Soon they meet drawn by an electric tension and shared past wounds; before long they begin sleeping together in secret. Self-possessed successful brilliant and aloof--the woman is everything Mallory wants...and wants to be. Desiring not only the woman but also the idea of who she is when they're together Mallory retreats from the rest of the world solidifying a sense of aloneness that has both haunted and soothed her since childhood and will continue to do so for years even after the affair ends. As an adult Mallory must decide whether to stay safely in isolation or step fully into the world to confront what the woman meant to her and how their relationship shaped her for better or worse.Mallory's life is transformed by loss and by love and by discovering who she is while enduring both. In this enthralling debut novel the complexities of influence obsession and admiration reveal how desire and its consequences can alter the trajectory of someone's life.
language: English
title: We Do What We Do in the Dark
publisher: Riverhead Books