ROSENFELD

An erotic obsession becomes all-consuming for a female Israeli filmmaker.

Kessler's debut is an X-rated deep dive into the overwhelming fascination of a 36-year-old narrator named Noa Simon with a "fat man dressed in a white shirt—or, on second glance, pink—one button excessively undone, exposing a hint of his tanned chest." This is Teddy Rosenfeld, whom Noa meets at a wedding. He and his business partner, Richard Harrington, are so impressed with a video Noa has made as part of the entertainment that they suggest she come work for them at their marine biotech firm. As the wedding reception progresses, Noa and Teddy smoke cigarettes together, go to the bathroom and pee together, and flirt with each other almost violently, though Teddy stops Noa's game far short of what she's hoping for. As they part, Noa sends a final salvo: "There's no woman in this world, in your entire life, who's wanted you as much as I want you." Over the next almost-400 pages, the force of Noa's desire will generate a ferocious sexual affair, conducted as she becomes an employee of Delmar Bio Solutions and gradually overcomes Teddy's resistance, increasingly involving herself in his complicated personal life, which includes multiple children and ex-wives. Noa is a wild, angry, difficult woman; Teddy is a big, sexy mensch women are crazy for; and Kessler portrays their relationship, their conversations, their sex, and their arguments with abandon—behind Noa's obsession with Teddy is Kessler's obsession with both of them. As the drama goes on and on, digging toward the aspects of their lives that the couple are withholding from each other—in Noa's case, her estrangement from her mother; in Teddy's, a "situation" with his second wife—the experience of reading it is a bit like sex that goes on too long. (Beige. I should paint the ceiling beige.) But obsession is as obsession does.

An unruly addition to the literature of passion that might have worked better as a novella.