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Published May 2019
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A love triangle among two college friends and a charismatic professor alters the lives of everyone involved in this razor-sharp novel from an author whose work has been hailed as "captivating" by J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Saints for All Occasions.
Fiona and Liv are seniors at Buchanan College, a small liberal arts school in rural Pennsylvania. Fiona, who is still struggling emotionally after the death of her younger sister, is spending her final college year sleeping with abrasive men she meets in bars. Liv is happily coupled and on the fast track to marriage with an all-American frat boy. Both of their journeys, and their friendship, will be derailed by the relationships they develop with Oliver Ash, a ruggedly good-looking visiting literature professor whose first novel was published to great success when he was twenty-six.
But now Oliver is in his early forties, with thinning hair and a checkered past, including talk of a relationship with an underage woman—a former student—at a previous teaching job. Meanwhile, Oliver's wife, Simone, is pursuing an academic research project in Berlin, raising their five-year-old son, dealing with her husband's absence, and wondering if their marriage is beyond repair.
This sly, stunning, wise-beyond-its-years novel is told from the perspectives of the three women and showcases Mandy Berman's talent for exploring the complexities of desire, friendship, identity, and power dynamics in the contemporary moment.
"Berman delivers a thorough and incredibly timely investigation into relationship power imbalances that's sure to start a lot of conversations." - Publishers Weekly
"Berman's spot-on dialogue keeps the pages turning." - Booklist
"A readable but reductive and rather off-putting look at relationships, whether new or old." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about The Learning Curve was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mandy Berman is the author of Perennials. Born and raised in the Hudson Valley, she received her MFA in Writing from Columbia University. She teaches creative writing at Manhattanville College and Montclair State University, and lives in Brooklyn.
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