The Easter Parade follows the sad destinies of two sisters who become unhinged after their parents’ divorce. But 15 years later he produced another masterpiece of national despair.

Yes, Yates’s 1961 novel Revolutionary Road remains a postwar American classic. Flaubert not only invented the so-called “desperate housewife” genre, but also spoke a truth that few then or now want to recognise: stepping out from the bonds of fidelity is often a response to boredom. Of course Flaubert shocked the guardians of moral propriety by having his not-so–bright heroine – whose has married a third-tier provincial doctor – starting an affair with a military man in town on secondment. It could be argued that the modern novel commenced with Flaubert’s masterpiece – because it stands as the first work of fiction that grappled with the nightmare of marriage at its most prosaic. A brilliantly constructed novel about the way in which passion can often become a game of obsessive ownership. And then there is her entrenched Catholicism. His jealousy is fuelled by the despair of knowing that he will probably never have a proper life with her. He becomes obsessed with claiming Sarah as his own. The End of the Affair by Graham GreeneĪ male novelist – unmarried, living a solipsistic existence in south London during the blitz – begins an affair with a senior civil servant’s wife. On which note, here are my 10 favourite novels on the agonies and ecstasies of the extramarital adventure:ġ.

Adultery book