Denis Robert - Happiness (Serpents Tail 2009)

Denis Robert's novel, translated from the original French, is an erotic dissection of sexual obsession and passion. A 39 year old writer (probably not dissimilar from the writer of the book) and an art graduate (ten years younger, sexual, willing to be dominated- male fantasy) meet and over the course of 200 pages dissect their intense sex lives that parade their obsessions and fantasies into a powerful mesh of eroticism. Her notes on the affair are on the left hand side and his on the right. It's a quite erotic read that shouldn't be attempted in public. However, it's quite light and never really gets under the surface, never really tackles the married man's lackadaisical attitude to his marriage and the woman's submissive personality, enhanced by her own loveless marriage. It is a tittilating voyage to the centre of fantasy and cruises hotel rooms, balconies, public spaces, cars, sex clubs and dinner tables, fellating the pages with oodles of passion and fierce intense orgasm. It's over before it's started, and though not much happens, it's an interesting dissection of an obsessive affair.