She’s a forty-four-year-old writer with a bohemian past, and he’s a preppy engineer ten years younger. She’s a Jewish New Yorker fascinated by his country’s traditional family compound life; he’s a devout Muslim who loves partying, Western-style. Both are passionate, but each keeps love and sex apart. She follows desire rather than convention; he insists he wants an arranged marriage. When he speaks of "making love" their first night together, she almost laughs at the expression. But after decades of intellectualizing love, she is surprised to find herself acknowledging the power of the heart.
A defense of romance in a time of calculation and an ode to sexual passion amid our culture’s turning away from the body, The Book of Trouble shakes up what we thought we knew about love, sex, and family.
