Narrator

The first person narrator of the novel is an unnamed woman. In the narrative present, she is in her early thirties, and living on the East Coast with her partner Vincent, and his elderly father. She works part time as a translator, and part time as a fiction writer. Throughout the novel, the narrator is attempting to finish her novel. She has grown frustrated with the novel, not only because she has been working on it for so long, but because she cannot figure out where and when to end the story.

The story central to the narrator's novel, is the story of her affair with a student several years prior. While living on the West Coast, the narrator was teaching at a college located near the ocean. One night, at a reception, she met the student, with whom she was immediately taken. They spent the night together...