Discipline - Larissa Pham

A taut, electrifying debut about a woman forced to confront unsettling truths about herself, her past, and the life she rebuilt following a ruinous affair with her former mentor, from a world phenom (Harpers Bazaar). nI have the sense that something is being drawn between us. Not drawn as in line but as in arrow pulled back.

Yet I dont know which of us holds the bow, and which of us faces the arrow. n n Christine is on tour for her novel, a revenge fantasy based on a real-life relationship gone bad with an older professor ten years prior. Now on the road, shes seeking answers--about how to live a good life and what it means to make art--through intimate conversations with strangers, past lovers, and friends.

n nBut when the antagonist of her novel--her old painting professor--reaches out in a series of sly communiques after years of silence to tell her he's read her book, Christine must reckon with what it means to lose the reins of a narrative she wrote precisely to maintain control. When her professor invites her to join him at his house, on a remote island off the coast of Maine, their encounter threatens to change the very foundations of her life as she's imagined it. n nA pristine and provocative high-wire act toggling the fictions we construct for ourselves just to survive and the possibilities that lie beyond them, Discipline launches a spellbinding inquiry into the nature of art-making and rigor, intimacy and attention, punishment and release.n