My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig is both straightforward (in terms of concept and structure) and marvelously complex (in terms of the Camus lens, and Craig’s choice of perspective).

The protagonist is Tessa, a successful female writer who develops a friendship, first by correspondence and then in person, with Charlie, a philosopher and scholar based. As it happens, Charlie is extremely attractive. Sparks fly as they exchange ideas about Camus and masculine desire, and their intellectual connection promises more but their spouses are the obstacle.

…to be drawn into Charlie’s world was to become part of a very deep and ongoing conversation, to be pulled along the currents of his innermost thoughts and conflicts, and to be attended to intimately in ways of the heart and mind – and soul, if I’m honest. I had only to send or say three or four words to him for the faucet of his intimacy to turn on.

Tessa’s husband, Milton enjoys Charlie’s company on his visits to the East Coast, however Charlie’s mixed-race Asian wife, Wah, is not so comfortable with Tessa. Wah’s traditional femininity and subservience to her husband strikes Tessa as weakness, and she scoffs at the sacrifices Wah makes as adoptive mother to a Burmese girl, Htet. But Wah is not easily dismissed – she is intelligent, coolly confident, and holds her ground on issues that are important to her – most unsettling for Tessa.

Even the erratic smiling glances she cast me as we rolled our bags toward their car seemed to communicate her capacity to see straight through to the worst of me or to the future in which I’d already begun to ruin their lives.

One night, during an alcohol-fuelled discussion, Tessa declares that Wah is ‘an insult to womankind’. The story begins with this moment, and moves back and forth in time to examine the lead-up and the fallout.

I class this book as a ‘moral thriller’ – the ‘action’ is predominantly emotional and focused on moments of self-reflection. But what Craig has done very cleverly is create a character in Tessa who is opinionated and self-righteous AND has these glaring blind-spots.

There are those who can’t keep sight of themselves and those who can’t keep themselves out of their own sight.

The reader sees the blind-spots and flaws, and so you anticipate the moments when ‘intellectually smart’ Tessa might realise that she’s lacking. The net result is an exquisite level of tension throughout the book, carefully layered with Tessa’s pontificating about Camus, Nietzsche, motherhood and femininity.

There are times when I can’t distinguish my habit of honesty from brutality. The look on Charlie’s face then was harrowing, broken and shamed. I suppose if I’d been a more ‘feminine’ woman, someone willing to sacrifice her sense of truth for his masculine pride, I would have immediately found a way to recant my diagnosis or to apologize.

I am not familiar with the work of Camus and therefore can’t comment on that aspect of the book, however, I appreciated the way that the robust intellectual debates between Tessa and Charlie provided interesting parallels to what was happening in their family lives. And all of this is achieved in a mere 200 pages.

I received my copy of My Nemesis from the publisher, Grove Atlantic, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/5

Wah had set out an array of noodle salads, thickly sauced vegetables, and fried chicken…

As part of the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, I’m comparing the Belfast summer and Melburnian winter. The results for the day I finished this book (June 12): Belfast 13°-23° and Melbourne 10°-17°.