The Age of Experience

An astonishing novel about the end of a marriage, and one woman's discovery of expansive a life can be. As if sixteen years had been nothing, had been prologue, life felt long, as if it were just beginning. When Kate’s marriage collapses a year shy of her fiftieth birthday, the pursuit of pleasure becomes the central focus of her life. Rather than despair at the ruins of the marriage behind her, Kate is thrilled by the parade of men available to her through dating apps, who offer a version of freedom which she couldn’t have dreamt of before her marriage. Kate assembles a revolving door roster of lovers, all decidedly casual: the runway model, the lifeguard, the musician. But it is Douglas, a stuntman in his late twenties, who shows Kate a new way of loving and being in the world. With the stuntman Kate is thrilled at first to discover the shape of her own desires, but their affair soon transforms into something darker and more desolate, as she begins to ask questions about love, desire and the exposing vulnerabilities of middle age. The Age of Experience is a brilliant story of desire, longing and self-discovery, perfect for readers of All Fours.