Sweet Nothings

Thirty years on from The First Stone, Madison Griffiths is ready to blow the conversation wide open

The professor who whispers sweet nothings into his students' ears, makes sweet nothings out of them.

Sweet Nothings is a gripping narrative non-fiction account of four women's interwoven stories in the wake of having once been students who embarked on romantic relationships with their university professors.

Through the stories of Rose, Blaine, Cara and Elsie, Griffiths explores what these relationships tell us about power and interrogates how class and gender are expressed and exploited in our academic institutions.

By tackling sex, desire and its consequences in a university setting, it looks keenly at the gender imbalances that inform these affairs, and how thorny betrayal becomes when a woman is made to believe she is the 'exception to the rule' only to find out she is one of many.

Griffiths' portrayal reveals, with searing candidness, the labyrinth of ego, ambition, and abuse that can begin in the classroom. It's an unflinching critique of the hierarchies that distort relationships and can leave lasting scars.