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The cure becomes the problem: The Seduction, by Joanna Briscoe, reviewed

13 June 2020

9:00 AM

13 June 2020

9:00 AM

The Seduction Joanna Briscoe

Bloomsbury, pp.384, 16.99

Beth, the protagonist of Joanna Briscoe’s The Seduction, reminded me of Clare in Tessa Hadley’s debut, Accidents in the Home. Both are domesticated mavericks with a reluctantly wandering eye: frustrated mothers looking for lovers to mirror their dormant wildness back at them.

The fact that Briscoe’s work feels familiar — sharing the same bohemian preoccupations with adultery, motherhood and quirky interiors as other purveyors of the unfairly maligned Hampstead novel — is no bad thing.

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