Other Men’s Daughters

The devastating story of a relationship between a professor and a student, brought to NYRB Classics by Philip Roth, who will provide an introduction for our edition.

For almost six years the Merriwethers of Cambridge have been living a lie. They still share the old house on Acorn Street- wooden, gabled, bellied with bay windows. Nights they can be found gathered in the parlor, reading in their favorite roosts. The children, intelligent, aware; Sarah, bright agreeable; Robert Merriwether, the helpless man of thought. One summer changes the direction of their lives. Sarah has taken the children to Maine, but for the first time in years Merriwether stays behind in Cambridge to work. A doctor and physiologist, it has been two years since he?s done work that has absorbed him. That summer, he eats alone, plays tennis occasionally or rows on the Charles, reads books that he hasn?t looked at since his youth and takes walks. His energy turns inward and Merriweather finds Cynthia Ryder, a young summer student who renews his passion and helps him to redefine his life. Other Men?s Daughters explores the theme that men are most alike in their most passionate times, but that most men diffuse the passions that first sustained them.