Seduction Theory

Simone is the star of the creative writing department at Edwards University. She is a renowned Woolf scholar, a grief memoirist and something of a campus sex icon. Her husband Ethan, a forgotten novelist who lectures in the same department, is the less glamorous half of the couple and seems devoted to her. By their own account, and everyone else's on campus, theirs is a perfect marriage.

That belief is shaken when Ethan sleeps with Abigail, the department's administrative assistant. Simone has secrets of her own, too. While Ethan is away for the summer, she grows unusually close to Roberta "Robbie" Green, a graduate student she advises. Simone sees in Robbie a running partner, a confidante and a disciple, or so she thinks.

Behind Simone's back, Robbie turns her mentor's marriage into fiction for her MFA thesis, an invasive and strikingly written piece of work. Determined to tell the story her way, Robbie draws a revealing portrait of Simone, Ethan, Abigail and herself. Her account scratches at the surface of what may or may not be the truth.