“Crushes were how you stayed a little bit in love with the world even though you had a husband,” explains the protagonist of Ada Calhoun’s debut novel. She’s an excellent flirt who can draw even the quietest men out of themselves, a skill that her husband, Paul, admires. But she’s content with her marriage and with the rest of her life—her child, her career as an author and ghostwriter.
Then Paul suggests they open the door of their marriage, just a crack. What if they tried kissing other people? She loves kissing, and it really isn’t his thing, a limitation she’s accepted. She cautiously accepts—and everything changes.
Even as she falls into an all-encompassing crush, the narrator is focused on maintaining her marriage. She and Paul promised themselves to each other, and she intends to keep that promise. But her email exchanges with another man light her up, making the surrounding world seem more vibrant. Time with her son, her work, even sex with her husband become more meaningful. And her relationship with Paul is fine. This “consensual nonmonogamy,” as he calls it, was his idea, after all.
In Crush, Calhoun captures the giddy high of desire. This romp through a middle-aged crush is as smart and sharp as you’d expect from the author of Also a Poet (one of BookPage’s best nonfiction titles of 2022).
Calhoun’s quick-paced story invites readers to lose themselves to the possibility of love taking unexpected shapes, while also providing a jumping-off point for exploring art and culture. On a single page, Calhoun invokes theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, philosopher and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, the band the Bangles, writers William and Henry James and their cousin Minny Temple, fashion designer Elizabeth Hawes, author Madeleine L’Engle, the band Erasure and the saint Padre Pio. The fun continues on Calhoun’s website, where she offers a Spotify playlist to pair with the novel. (Playlists are available for her other books, too.) Regardless of how readers engage with the story, they will find in Crush an opportunity to view the world through a new lens.
