Theory & Practice

Recently I sifted through our new releases in search of—well, I wasn't sure. A certain kind of book I knew I needed without quite knowing what it was. And this little novel, I realized almost as soon as I picked it up, was it. Can I describe it now? I'm still not sure, but what comes to mind first is "restlessly intelligent." An Australian woman from Sri Lanka studies Virginia Woolf in grad school, and has an irrationally possessive affair with a young man who is, mostly, seeing someone else. It's a story very much about what the title says—the gap, the friction, between theory and practice—but really it's about the grit and the thought of this particular life, looked back on from afar. If you liked Claire Dederer's Monsters (and I know many of you did), you'll find a fictional companion here, somewhat in subject but certainly in that shared restless intelligence.