"Little Children" [.]

[fiefoe]

The novel opens with a "Madame Bovary" quote, so we know where the story is going. The author mercifully spares us much strum and drang. A girl met her future husband when she drunkenly provided the fraternity an orgy; a husband comes to California to meet the object of his addiction: 'It was a cliché, but it struck him with the force of transcendent truth: _Things are easier out here.'

• ... that beauty was only part of it, and not even the most important part, that there were transactions between people that occurred on some mysterious level beneath the skin, or maybe even beyond the body. He was proud of himself for wanting her so badly. It made him feel like he'd grown up a little, expanded his vision, like he'd traveled to a faraway place or learned to appreciate an exotic food.
• "I'm fine," she said, still on her hands and knees, still staring  dumbstruck at the other woman's toes. "Just give me a second."
• All he wished was that Sarah had been there to see it, to know him as he'd known himself streaking down the wide-open field, not as some jock hero scoring the winning touchdown, but as a grown man experiencing an improbable moment of grace.
  And then he saw her.
• "Just tell me one thing," she said. "Do you love her?"
  "I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out."
  She laughed, sounding a little more amused than he might have expected.
  "Let me know when you decide, okay?"
  "It's not funny," he muttered.
  "Oh. that's right. I almost forgot."

Sometimes we get glimpses of "Election"-land.
__ the stoic patience of early adolescence
__ ...high school, knowing nothing except that they couldn't possibly be happy with any of the choices the world seemed to be offering them

[Quibble: Never heard of couples sharing an email account...]

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