Charmaine Craig

Novelist Charmaine Craig, known for the National Book Award nominated Miss Burma, visits the store on the occasion of the release of her third novel, My Nemesis. The novel is a fascinating dive into the complex relationship between two women: a professor and author and the wife of the man the former is having an emotional affair with. What starts out as a story seemingly about marital infidelity turns into one about female competition, friendship, and obsession. In My Nemesis, Tessa is a successful writer who develops a friendship, first by correspondence and then in person, with Charlie, a ruggedly handsome philosopher and scholar based in Los Angeles. Sparks fly as they exchange ideas about Camus and masculine desire, and their intellectual connection promises more—but there are obstacles to this burgeoning relationship. Charlie’s wife Wah proves to be both adversary and conundrum to Tessa. Wah has a kind of power, especially over Charlie, and the conflict between the two women leads to a martini-fueled declaration by Tessa that Wah is “an insult to womankind.” As Tessa is forced to deal with the consequences of her outburst and considers how much she is limited by her own perceptions, she wonders if Wah is really as weak as she has seemed, or if she might have a different kind of strength altogether. Compassionate and thought-provoking, My Nemesis is a brilliant story of seduction, envy, and the ways we publicly define and privately deceive ourselves today. Charmaine Craig is the author of the novels Miss Burma, longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Good Men. Formerly an actor, she teaches in the program in fiction at UC Riverside and lives in Los Angeles.

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