Indiscretion by Charles Dubow
Fiction 
403 Pages
Released February, 2013
Bottom Line: Read it.
Affiliate Link: Buy from Amazon
Source: Purchased

Plot Summary

When Claire, a beautiful and captivating girl in her early twenties, enters the world of Harry and Maddy Winslow, their lives will never be the same.

My Thoughts

This book was described on Amazon as paying tribute to The Great Gatsby (which I loved), and it does in certain ways. It’s set among the estates of East Hampton, it’s narrated by an outside friend (Walter, similar to Gatsby‘s Nick Carraway), Walter often looks out the window of his estate to watch Maddy’s nearby bedroom light go off at night (the green light on Daisy’s dock in Gatsby), and the plot centers on a devastating outsider being drawn into the center of other people’s lives. But, Indiscretion is unabashedly less “literary” and more straight up guilty pleasure than Gatsby.

The plot seemed so cliche to me at first – I felt there must be more to this than the blatantly obvious “earth shattering event” you see coming a mile away. But, I found myself inexplicably drawn in and absolutely flying through the book…cliche and all. I would go as far as to say it was somewhat addictive. It was almost as if some page turning impulse was overriding my brain telling me that I had read this story many times before.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on why it was so addictive despite rational thought and landed on the fact that the story is about much more than initially meets the eye. It’s about marriage being a whole life created with impacts reaching far beyond the two people in the relationship. It’s about the ripple effect of actions – and their consequences even decades later. Dubow does a fantastic job making you feel what the characters are feeling – and he covers every end of the betrayal feelings spectrum. 

Indiscretion is Charles Dubow’s first book and I’m interested to see what he does next. This one will make a great beach read for summer!