A review by johndiconsiglio
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

3.0

Not 1 but 2 novels. In Part 1 (“Folly”), a young NY book editor has an affair with a much older writer. (The author was Phillip Roth’s real-life lover, so there aren’t many lines to read between.) In Part 2 (“Madness”), an Iraqi-American man has a long detention at Heathrow on his way to Kurdistan. The stories appear unrelated. Even the styles are different. The (stronger) opener leaves much unsaid. The latter half is introspective to a fault. You gotta work to find the connections. (That Huck Finn passage? The hot dog man on Amsterdam?) Maybe there are none. Maybe that’s the point.