Prosperous Friends A Novel

“[A] revelation…a devastating story of young love, old love, and no love” by a National Book Award finalist (The New Yorker, Best Books of the Year). Prosperous Friends follows the evolution of a young couple’s marriage as it is challenged by the quandaries of longing and sexual self-discovery. The glamorous and gifted Ned Bourne and his pretty wife, Isabel, travel to London, New York, and Maine in hopes of realizing their artistic promise, but their quest for sexual fulfillment is less assured. Past lovers and new infatuations, doubt and indifference threaten to bankrupt the marriage. The Bournes’ fantasies for their future will finally give way to a deepened and mature perspective in the company of an older, celebrated artist, Clive Harris, and his wife, Dinah, a poet. With compassionate insight, Christine Schutt explores the divide between those like Clive and Dinah who seem to prosper in love—and those like Ned and Isabel who feel condemned to yearn for it. “By turn poetically mesmeric and brutally unsentimental…a beautiful but disquieting novel about broken vows and hearts.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “A glancing, impressionistic style that owes a happy debt to Virginia Woolf…genuine moments of beauty and hope."—The Wall Street Journal