“A breakthrough tour de force. Many have tried to give us an unreliable narrator; few have succeeded as well as Craig does. Along the way she slyly visits other forms — Victorian novels with the microanalysis of people’s gestures and motives, autofiction with its self-absorbed protagonists, midcentury American male novels (but inverted). And this is also a novel of ideas, where people debate motives, values, femininity, motherhood.” —Carolyn Kellogg, The Boston Globe
“‘My Nemesis’, Charmaine Craig’s taut, bristling and psychologically profound third novel, is the story of a seductive friendship that threatens to upend two homes. But it is really about the unwieldy needs and desires of middle age…the selfish demands of creativity, ‘the shocks and shames of parenthood’, the sacrifices made by women and how love can arise from an error of perception…. Slimmer, punchier and more tightly wound [than Craig’s previous novels], ‘My Nemesis’ highlights her talent for capturing the minutiae of interpersonal drama." —Emily Bobrow, The Economist
“For fans of Siri Hustvedt and Claire Messud, Craig's third novel, ‘My Nemesis,’ is the spiky little feminist page-turner you've been waiting for…whose real feminism is found in its resistance to creating likable female characters… Craig deals her narrative tricks with a sure hand.” —Marion Winik, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Written by the outrageously talented Charmaine Craig, My Nemesis tells the stories of two women, their marriages and their deceptions. Brilliantly speaking to themes of gender, friendship, loyalty, perception and identity, this one will have you thinking.” —Ms. Magazine
“Tessa is a Camus-obsessed misanthrope who has a thorny relationship with her daughter and a penchant for poking figurative bears, and yet in Craig’s hands she’s a mesmerizing narrator.”—Keziah Weir, “7 Books We Can’t Stop Talking About,” Vanity Fair
“Much of the power of this excitingly barbed book is Craig’s complex portrait of a woman for whom rage is the default. A gin-drenched Valkyrie, Tessa weaponises her feminism with cruel aggression. She joins a line-up of fascinating fictional females…”—Lucy Scholes, the Financial Times
“Craig’s narrative is masterful and self-assured… Artful in its prose and unsparing in the way it looks at envy and its corrosive effects, My Nemesis is a riveting novel about the stories people tell themselves to justify their shortcomings and what happens when they start to believe these lies.” —Michael Schaub, Alta
“There are shades of Rachel Cusk and even Elena Ferrante in Craig’s tense, cerebral but elegant novel about a successful married writer, Tessa, who reaches out by correspondence to an LA-based scholar to bond over Camus. But as the relationship deepens, pulling Tessa’s husband into its orbit, Tessa finds herself in a power struggle with the prof’s seemingly docile half-Asian wife – that ‘seemingly’ takes us to some unexpected places.” —The Globe and Mail
“My Nemesis is a complex and layered novel. It breaks down a traditional, binary thinking that to be feminine is to not be a feminist. The story is a test of compassion, and Craig’s writing offers astute observations of philosophy, female rivalry, duty, and romanticism. The prose is bold — giving us a beautiful insight into the vulnerability of two dissimilar female characters.” —Shondaland
“A layered exploration of the perception of the self and the outside world…masterful… A simple plot summary cannot capture the depth of Craig's treatment of such big themes as femininity and masculinity, motherhood and fatherhood, friendship and love. Craig offers an effective inquiry into the elusive nature of intimate relationships, whether they stem from love or hate.” —Booklist (starred review)
“A swift and cutting examination of rivalry between two women . . . The writing is biting and propulsive as allegiances shift . . . This confident work is sure to spark conversations.” —Publishers Weekly
“An intense portrayal of an intellectual affair as well as a private competition between two women with perfectly balanced moments of tension and introspection . . . Craig never lets her first-person narrator off the hook . . . Cerebral and tense.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Charmaine Craig’s brilliant anatomization of mid-life art, identity, and infidelity shares in the intellectual grace and precision of its characters’ philosophical pursuits, yet beneath the ruminative surface this book churns with desire and remorse.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of The Arrest
“My Nemesis is an exhilarating act of defiance, a novel that lights a match and sends the whole question of female characters’ likability up in flames. Charmaine Craig is a writer unafraid of contradictions—at once elegant and unruly, cool yet searing—and here she’s given us a fiercely philosophical novel that is also irresistibly, addictively readable.” —Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, author of Likes
“I was bowled over by this brilliant narrative of desire, complicity, and the limits of empathy. My Nemesis is a compact masterpiece in the confessional mode, one that reverberates long after the last page is turned. Bravo!” —Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth
“As deeply empathic as it is thrillingly addictive, My Nemesis is a stunning and brave literary feat. Charmaine Craig’s searing prose and complex vision challenges us to abandon the safety and certainty of our own perspectives. What begins as a novel of female rivalry quickly transforms into a profound spiritual meditation on the danger of our inability—or unwillingness—to imagine and dignify the inner life of the other. With luminous grace, Craig’s writing is a testament to the transcendent power and peace possible when we dare to try.” —Fatima Farheen Mirza, author of A Place for Us
“I devoured this sly, seething novel. So marvelously perceptive, so effortlessly elegant, it lays bare the horror of what husbands and wives expect of each other. My Nemesis is a pearl cultivated in justified rage. I loved it.” —Sarah Manguso, author of Very Cold People
“A blisteringly smart novel about feminism, identity and desire that refuses easy answers and will linger for a long time in my mind.”—Monica Ali, author of Love Marriage
“Charmaine Craig’s My Nemesis is a spellbinding highwire act . . . a brutal exposition of the destructive underside of desire and the fragility of familial bonds. Craig’s cutting sentences reveal how easily the life of the mind, sublime and addictive, can be transformed into a weapon that decimates lives. Perhaps most brilliantly, My Nemesis is a warning against the quiet grafting of racial power dynamics onto our most intimate networks of love. My Nemesis is a riveting clear-eyed burn of a book. Read it now!” —Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, author of Savage Tongues
Publisher’s description
From the acclaimed author of Miss Burma, longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, comes an immersive and searing story of two women, their marriages, and the rivalry between them
Tessa is a successful writer who develops a friendship, first by correspondence and then in person, with Charlie, a ruggedly handsome philosopher and scholar based in Los Angeles. Sparks fly as they exchange ideas about Camus and masculine desire, and their intellectual connection promises more—but there are obstacles to this burgeoning relationship.
While Tessa’s husband Milton enjoys Charlie’s company on his visits to the East Coast, Charlie’s wife Wah is a different case, and she proves to be both adversary and conundrum to Tessa. Wah’s traditional femininity and subservience to her husband strike Tessa as weaknesses, and she scoffs at the sacrifices Wah makes as adoptive mother to a Burmese girl, Htet, once homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. But Wah has a kind of power too, especially over Charlie, and the conflict between the two women leads to a martini-fueled declaration by Tessa that Wah is “an insult to womankind.” As Tessa is forced to deal with the consequences of her outburst and considers how much she is limited by her own perceptions, she wonders if Wah is really as weak as she has seemed, or if she might have a different kind of strength altogether.
Compassionate and thought-provoking, My Nemesis is a brilliant story of seduction, envy, and the ways we publicly define and privately deceive ourselves today.
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