– Customer review on 26/01/2011

A Spy in the House of Love is a fascinating character study of Sabina who is divided between the constraints of the female condition and being an autonomous individual; and between wanting to escape the dull routine of her life (symbolized by her husband Alan) and her sense of guilt (personified by the lie detector which follows her about). Because marriage and being a woman under patriarchy confines Sabina to one role (that of wife and mother), or impels her to be what her husband or society demands that she be at the expense of her own identity, she can only realize those facets of her personality not allowed expression outside of wifehood. Hence her dalliance with many lovers--her unfaithfulness. Each lover answers a different need in Sabina and enables her to enact a different aspect of her personality. Indeed, Sabina's divided, conflicted, and fragmented self (as a result of not being able to be a whole human being as that would go against male stereotypes of what being female is) is mirrored in the 5 different men she romances--all of whom reflect different aspects of Sabina's personality and psyche. Nevertheless this leaves her feeling conflicted and split when what Sabina yearns for is unity--a man who would love her for all parts of herself, or her whole self, not just those aspects which appeal to his male vanity. No matter who the man Sabina still has to don a disguise and be for that man what he is looking for in a woman. Hence the duplicity, the many guises, why she feels like she is living a double life like a spy. This is a beautiful novella written in abstract prose that is scintillating to the end.