Emmanuèle Bernheim, born in 1955 and the youngest of the writers I have
considered here, has three novels to her credit thus far. Le Cran d'arrêt (The
switchblade) appeared in 1985. It was followed two years later by Un Couple.
Bernheim third novel, Sa Femme (a title that might be translated as "his
wife" or "his woman") was published in 1993 to broad commercial and
critical acclaim. ¹ It sold over one hundred thousand copies in France and has
been translated into twelve other languages. ² It was saluted by enthusiastic
reviews in Le Monde, Le Figaro Magazine, and L'Express. ³ It was awarded the
prestigious Prix Médicis. Clearly, the novel's appeal was very considerable
indeed. As a first gesture, I would like to speculate on what might account
for that appeal.

In their readings of Sa Femme all three of its reviewers dwell at some
length on two issues that may be taken as the novel's principal selling points:
the excellence of its plot and its brevity. At first glance, the plot of Sa
Femme is a simple and very classic one: Claire, a young Parisian doctor,
falls in love with Thomas, a married man. ⁴ The story recounts the way their
relationship evolves, touching faithfully -- and almost parodically -- on the
many commonplaces of the literary representation of adultery: the struggle
between desire and duty, the powerful erotics of secrecy, the way passion
is simultaneously repressed and fueled by taboo, and so forth. Yet there's
a curious twist in this otherwise predictable plot, something that might be
described in the language of advertising as the novel's "hook." Constrained
by the ethics of their profession, the book's reviewers tread lightly, elliptically,

-153-