Discretion Paperback by Elizabeth Nunez

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2016-11-01)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 302 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781617755491
• Item Weight: 368.55 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

Elizabeth Nunez's reissued fourth novel is a haunting, mesmerizing exploration into the often destructive price of passion.

“Refreshingly ambitious in its intellectual scope.” —New York Times Book Review

“A complex portrait of a love triangle by a gifted writer.” —Booklist

Set amongst the struggles of American, Caribbean, and African diplomacy in the late 1980s, Discretion follows the harrowing journey of Oufoula Sindede, a diplomat of rough beginnings, who discovers his desires may be out of his control.

Dutifully married to lovely Nerida, Oufoula goes through the motions of marriage, formally keeping his distance from the woman with whom he shares his bed. And yet there is a deeper, buried passion within him that will lead him to question which values he holds sacred and which can be sacrificed.

Despite his quiet marriage, the memory of a fiery love affair triggers Oufoula to entangle himself in the life of another woman, a Jamaican-born painter named Marguerite. Soon he discovers that Marguerite is nothing like any of his quick old flames or his gentle wife, Nerida—Marguerite is much more.

And so begins a whirlwind affair, spanning over twenty years, between a young woman who wants order and love and a man who is torn between the honors of his profession and his dishonorable love life; the old African customs of polygamy and the American dream; and the passion for a mistress and the duty to his wife. Nunez’s heartbreaking fourth novel questions the customs we think we know with the truths that passion and love reveal about ourselves.

About the Author

Elizabeth Nunez, PhD, is the bestselling author of 10 novels, including Bruised Hibiscus, winner of an American Book Award. Nunez’s book Boundaries was selected as a New York Times Editors' Choice and was a 2012 NAACP Image Award nominee. She immigrated to the United States from Trinidad and is a distinguished professor at Hunter College, the City University of New York.