My Heart Hemmed In

Marie NDiaye has long been celebrated for her unrivaled ability to make us see just how little we understand about ourselves. *My Heart Hemmed In* is her most powerful statement on the hidden selves that we rarely glimpse--and are often shocked by.

There is something very wrong with Nadia and her husband Ange, middle-aged provincial schoolteachers who slowly realize that they are despised by everyone around them. One day a savage wound appears in Ange's stomach, and as Nadia fights to save her husband's life their hideous neighbor Noget--a man everyone insists is a famous author--inexplicably imposes his care upon them. While Noget fattens them with ever richer foods, Nadia embarks on a nightmarish visit to her ex-husband and estranged son--is she abandoning Ange or revisiting old grievances in an attempt to save him?

Conjuring an atmosphere of paranoia and menace, *My Heart Hemmed In* creates a bizarre, foggy world where strange coincidences, harsh cruelty, and constantly shifting relationships all seem part of some shadowy truth. Surreal, allegorical, and psychologically acute, *My Heart Hemmed In* shows a masterful author giving her readers her most complex and compelling world yet.