The Ancestry of Objects

A young woman meets a man at a restaurant while eating alone and contemplating her own death. They exchange words only briefly, but by the end of the week he has entered her world with an intensity rivaled only by her desire to end her life.

Told with the lyrical persistence of a Greek chorus, The Ancestry of Objects unravels the story of the unnamed narrator’s affair with David: married, graying, and ultimately a form of erotic power to which the narrator succumbs. As they meet more and mo...