With the raw emotional complexity of Conversations with Friends, the dark academia of Bunny, and filled with the sharp intimacy, heart, and humor of Splinters, SEDUCTION THEORY is a profound exploration of the challenges of monogamy, marital betrayal in all its forms, the dangerous intimacy of student-professor relationships, and the power of forgiveness.
SEDUCTION THEORY
by Emily Adrian
Little, Brown, August 2025
(via Writers House)
Simone is the star of the Edwards University Creative Writing Department: renowned Woolf scholar, grief memoirist, and campus sex icon. Her less glamorous and ostensibly devoted husband, Ethan, is a forgotten novelist and lecturer in the same department. But when Ethan and the department administrative assistant Abigail have sex, Simone’s graduate student Roberta “Robbie” Green fictionalizes the affair in a breathtakingly invasive MFA thesis.
Determined to tell her version of the story, Robbie’s youthful and sardonic voice weaves in and out of the novel until she finally takes charge of the plot. Vivid, innovative, witty, and tender, SEDUCTION THEORY is a story about how love and betrayal can coexist.
Emily Adrian is the author of Everything Here Is Under Control and The Second Season, as well as two critically acclaimed novels for young adults. Most recently, her memoir, Daughterhood was published. Her work has appeared in Granta, Joyland, EPOCH, Alta Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Millions.
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