Breakable You [Paperback]

Adam Weller is a moderately successful novelist, past his prime, but squiring around a much younger woman and still longing for greater fame and glory. His former wife, Eleanor, is unhappily playing the role of the overweight, discarded woman. Their daughter Maud has just begun a frankly sexual affair that unexpectedly becomes life-changing. Into each of these lives the past intrudes in a way that will test them to their core. With perfect pitch and a rare empathy, Brian Morton is equally adept at portraying the life of the mind and how it plays out in the world, brilliantly tracing the border between honor and violation. Here Morton tells his strongest story yet—a story about love, friendship, literary treachery, and what each of us owes to the past.

PRAISE FOR BRIAN MORTON

 

For some readers, Brian Morton may still be an undiscovered treasure. He won’t be for long. –Newsday

The passion of Morton’s characters ring true . . . because the romantic ones conflict with such things as professional ambition and jealously. –Chicago Tribune

ONE
 
As she watched her husband walk toward her, Eleanor Weller searched for signs of his recent accident, didnt find any, and wasnt sure whether she was relieved or disappointed. She had expected him to be limping, or walking with a cane, or, more dramatically, listing, like an injured ship, but he looked as brisk and confident as ever.

 He kissed her on the cheek. They had been separated long enough for her to find this endurable. Every other time shed seen him during the past year, shed held herself stiffly at a distance, sickened by the thought of coming into contact with him in any way.

 He took her arm, grasping it too tightly, as was his habit, and led her into the restaurant. She was stunned that she allowed herself to be led in this fashion, after everything.