Indiscretion
The Great Gatsby meets The Secret History in this torrid novel of love, lust and deception.Harry and Madeleine Winslow are blessed with talent, money, and charm. Harry is an award–winning author on the cusp of greatness. Madeleine is a woman of sublime beauty and grace whose elemental goodness belies a privileged upbringing. Bonded by deep devotion, their marriage is both envied and admired by friends who spend summers at their East Hampton idyll.When a holiday fling turns disastrously wrong, 26-year-old Claire falls into the Winslows’ welcoming orbit. They are enchanted by her youth and intelligence. In turn, Claire is entranced by Harry and Maddy. The love that exists between them is something of which, until now, she could only dream.Seen through the omniscient eyes of Maddy's childhood friend Walter, Indiscretion is a story about the complexities of love, the dangerous nature of desire and how obsession can tear apart even the most perfect of worlds.This ebook edition also contains an extended extract from Maggie Shipstead’s award-winning, New York Times bestseller, Seating Arrangements.
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INDISCRETION
Charles Dubow
About the Book
‘Every story has a narrator. Someone who writes it down after it’s all over. Why am I the narrator of this story? I am because it is the story of my life—and of the people I love most …’
Harry and Madeleine Winslow are blessed with talent, money, and charm. Harry is an award–winning author on the cusp of greatness. Madeleine is a woman of sublime beauty and grace whose elemental goodness belies a privileged upbringing. Bonded by deep devotion, their marriage is both envied and admired by friends who spend summers at their East Hampton idyll.
When a holiday fling turns disastrously wrong, 26-year-old Claire falls into the Winslows’ welcoming orbit. They are enchanted by her youth and intelligence. In turn, Claire is entranced by Harry and Maddy. The love that exists between them is something of which, until now, she could only dream.
Seen through the omniscient eyes of Maddy’s childhood friend Walter, a narrator akin to Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, Indiscretion is a story about the complexities of love, the dangerous nature of desire and how obsession can tear apart even the most perfect of worlds.
Praise for Indiscretion
‘An epic novel of friendship, betrayal and undying love … outstanding’ Kirkus
‘An elegant début’ Publishers Weekly
‘Dubow has pulled off something remarkable: a finely tuned, perfectly pitched literary novel with the urgency of a tensely plotted thriller’ Chris Pavone, author of The Expats
‘Indiscretion richly delves into the complex permutations of love. Dubow writes with nuanced precision, and his characters are captivatingly real’ Kate Christenson, author of The Astral
About the Author
Charles Dubow was born in New York City and spent his summers at his family’s house on Georgica Pond in East Hampton (the primary setting for Indiscretion). He was educated at Wesleyan University and New York University. He has worked as a roustabout, a lumberjack, a sheepherder in New Zealand, a congressional aide and was a founding editor of Forbes.com and later an editor at Businessweek.com. He lives in New York City with his wife Melinda, children William and Lally, and a Labrador Retriever named Luke. Indiscretion is his first novel.
To Melinda
E cosi desio me mena
(And so desire carries me away)
PETRARCH
Great lovers lie in Hell …
JOHN CROWE RANSOM
Table of Contents
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PROLOGUE
THE POET A. E. HOUSMAN WROTE OF THE “LAND OF LOST content,” and how he can never return to the place where he had once been so happy.
When I was younger, I greatly admired the poem’s sentiment because I was not old enough to realize how banal it was. The young invariably cherish their youth, incapable of imagining life past thirty. The notion that the past is more idyllic is absurd, however. What we remember is our innocence, strong limbs, physical desire. Many people are shackled by their past and are unable to look ahead with any degree of confidence because they not only don’t believe in the future, they don’t really believe in themselves.
But that doesn’t prevent us from casting a roseate glow over our memories. Some memories burn brighter, whether because they meant more or because they have assumed greater importance in our minds. Holidays blur together, snowstorms, swimming in the ocean, acts of love, holding our parents’ hands when we are very small, great sadnesses. But there is much we forget too. I have forgotten so much—names, faces, brilliant conversations, days and weeks and months, things I vowed never to forget, and to fill in the gaps, I conflate the past or make it up entirely. Did that happen to me or to someone else? Was that me who broke his leg skiing in Lech? Did I run from the carabinieri after a drunken night in Venice? Places and actions that seem so real can be entirely false, based purely on impressions of a story told at the time and then somehow subconsciously woven into the fabric of our lives.
After a while it becomes real.
1
ELEVEN IN THE MORNING. THE BACKYARDS OF HOUSES RUMBLE by. Here and there an aboveground pool, discarded patio furniture, rusting bicycles. Barking dogs tied with ropes. Dry lawns. The sky is a pale blue, the heat of early summer just beginning to unfurl itself. Every fifteen minutes or so the train stops. More people get on than off.
Day-trippers look for empty seats on the crowded, noisy, brightly lit train. They carry bags filled with sunblock, bottles of water, sandwiches, and magazines. The women wear bathing suits under their clothes, bursts of neon color knotted around their necks. The men, young, tattooed, muscular, the buds of iPods wired to their ears, wear backward baseball caps, shorts, and flip-flops, towels draped around their necks, ready for a Saturday at the beach.
