My Nemesis

by Charmaine Craig

From the acclaimed author of Miss Burma, longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize, comes a tense and thought-provoking exploration of an intellectual affair and its reverberations across the lives of two couples

Tessa is a successful white woman 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.

While Tessa’s husband Milton enjoys Charlie’s company on his visits to the East Coast, Charlie’s mixed-race Asian wife Wah is a different case, and she proves to be both adversary and conundrum to Tessa. Wah’s traditional femininity and subservience to her husband strike Tessa as weaknesses, and she scoffs at the sacrifices Wah makes as adoptive mother to a Burmese girl, Htet, once homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. But Wah has a kind of power too, especially over Charlie, and the conflict between the two women leads to Tessa’s martini-fueled declaration 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.

An exercise in empathy, an exploration of betrayal, and a charged story of the thrill of a shared connection—and the perils of feminine rivalry—My Nemesis is a brilliantly dramatic and captivating story from a hugely talented writer whose portrayals are always gracefully phrased and keenly observed.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Feminism, Novels, Adult, Asian Literature

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 7, 2023

About the author

Charmaine Craig is the author of the novels My Nemesis; Miss Burma, longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction; and The Good Men, a national bestseller. Her writing has been published in a dozen languages and appeared in venues including The New York Times Magazine, Narrative Magazine, AFAR Magazine, and Dissent. Formerly an actor in film and television, she studied literature at Harvard College, received her MFA from the University of California at Irvine, and serves as a faculty member in the Department of Creative Writing at UC Riverside. She lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

How is this psychological thriller about female rivalry and Albert Camus so much fun?! Our unsympathetic and utterly fascinating protagonist is Tessa, a white, successful writer who is married for the scond time and has a strained relationship with her college-age daughter from her first marriage. She strikes a friendship with philosophy scholar Charlie, much to the dismay of his wife Wah, a mixed-race Asian author and university lecturer, and their adopted daughter of Burmese descent, Htet. Told from the intentionally one-sided perspective of Tessa, who has written this cacount to an at first undisclosed addressee, we learn about the complex rivalry that ensues between the women, centering on roles like wife, mother, and artist, and how to properly play them.

Craig does a fantastic job reflecting phenomena like self-perception, projection, societal expectations, the weaponization of feminism, wokism and virtue as well as the age-old contest about male attention and affection. This charade becomes so intricate that the reader sometimes wonders whether Tessa is honest (even to herself), whether she observes or projects, and what might be left out or re-framed. Right at the beginning, we learn that the rivalry will lead to a public dispute with severe consequences for everybody involved, and both Tessa and Wah gain complexity with every chapter - as do their daughters. All women struggle with questions of agency and the longing for approval, including the kind of approval they could only grant themselves. The men, on the other hand, are more or less props or, at best, catalysts, which, regarding the focus of the novel, is only stringent (and funny).

What are female qualities, and if something like that exists (if only via societal declaration), does embracing some of them turn a woman into a bad feminist? What is the relation between love and pain, between honesty and ruthlessness, between weakness and service? How much should a mother sacfrice for her children? Defensive Tessa always prioritizes herself and portrays it as a feminist standpoint, she despises Wah for her protective motherliness and displays of fragility - of course without realising the strength that lives in the open display of feeling and empathy, and without acknowldeging the differences in cultural background. Wah, on the other hand, has a strained relationship with her freedom-seeking husband who never wanted children, who is in turn fascinated by Tessa, who herself has a crush on handsome Charlie.

And of course there is a philosphical layer brought in by Friedrich Nietzsche (Charlie's favorite philosopher) and Albert Camus, the latter frequently being invoked by Tessa when she ponders her attitudes and behaviors in an existentialist framework. Both of these guys were of course white men pre-occupied with white men problems. Self-righteous Tessa is also caught up in her belief system, ultimately attacking what challenges her, and to her, the very existence of Wah with her unapologetic beauty and service ideal is a provocation - which does not mean that Wah is a perfect angel in this scenario.

The book states that to Camus, the Greek goddess Nemesis represented what he wanted to achieve with his work: As she represented the moderation that accounted for the variety of human experiences and perspectives, he saw her as the goddess of love. To decide who is whose nemesis in the novel, I recommend to read it - and don't overlook the minor characters like the traumatized elderly neighbor Ernie, Tessa's husband and daughter, and Htet's friends, all of them smartly rendered devices in this tale about the lack of female solidarity. What an intricate chamber play, it's rarely so fascinating to roam inside the head of an insufferable person like Tessa.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there was ever a book, much less about ‘content’ than about ‘context’, this is it!!!!
But the ‘content’ is what makes us book so deliciously intoxicating to devour it in one or two sittings.

The unlikable characters are fascinating!!!
They are filled with fury, indignation, anger, covert and overt hostility, guilt tripping, shaming, aggressiveness,
entitlement, and condescending behaviors.
The main characters are either intellectually elitist or unassuming passive.
They may be:
Silenced….
Repressed….
or
Closeted individuals….

Tessa, Milton, Charlie, and Wah….take us on a ride I wouldn’t have wanted to miss
I can EAT BOOKS LIKE THIS!!
The philosophical and psychological quandaries run deep….diving deep into our own psyche…..leaving us (readers) with much to contemplate….and question.
We get to examine our own opinions, prejudices, fury, along with our delusional selves…. Yippy! right?/! Or…. at the very least, if one does not want to take this book seriously….it’s at least entertaining as hell! I found it — both: entertaining….yet seriously important.

Charmaine Craig is a writer after my own heart …. I couldn’t respect her more for writing this book. She explores womanhood, parenthood, marriage, gender roles, feminine and masculine hypotheticals, intellectual needs, physical desires/ lust, with masterful skill. ….
The tension builds throughout.
There is a LOT of THINGS to think about!!!!

I appreciated ‘somebody’ (thank you Charmaine) examining peer relationships between women!!!
Women friendships can be the most cherished of all relationships in the world …..and/or can be extreme and complex.
The origins of female rivalry can be quite manipulative…. undermining each others success.
Female rivalry may not look as direct as with male/male competitiveness, but they are less likely to fizzle away easily.
Why women hold grudges longer than most men — is a puzzle I still wonder.
I’ll admit being an ugly culprit myself at times, too.
It seems to me that women are less prepared than men to resolve conflicts with same-sex peers….than men with men.

Charmaine does a brilliant job exploring sabotage, boasting, mimicking and discrediting others in front of others. Ouch!

At only 147 pages ….this slim-jim is actually a hearty-husky-hunky……substantially satisfying and stimulating: powerfully written!

Tons of excerpts on every page intrigued me.
I’m going to include a lot of long excerpts ….
…. not necessarily for others to read —
but I’m selfishly including these excerpts because I want to come back and read them again — in a few weeks from now — or at the end of the year ….(have them here easily at my disposal).


“His first letter to me, routed by email through my publisher about nine months prior to all this, was a response to my essay on the question of Camus’s relevance. It’s not often that I allow myself to feel flattered by appreciative words from readers; I think, if you are honest with yourself, you will agree that flattery should be allowed to mean something primarily to the flatterer. But with the first lines of Charlie’s admiring letter, I understood that our minds could keep a certain, rare company. I soon broke my policy of not googling people whose work intrigues me, and after some searching, I saw that he was a decently, published philosophy, professor at a research, university near L. A. and, by any contemporary, metric, practically invisible online. There was just one photo of him, on his department website: a candid-looking shot of an approachable, disheveled, frankly, sexy man of middle-age”.
“Understand me: my swift response to his letter, wasn’t a matter of loneliness, sexual or otherwise; my husband, of seven years, Milton, and I still enjoyed various forms of camaraderie, but when a darkly, attractive man from a similar desert of intellectual, isolation comes bearing a cup of consolation, one drinks!”

“We were three, to be sure, but none of us would have deny that I was the glue that made us three stick”.
—Tessa

When Tessa’s daughter, Eleonore, was ten years old, in the fifth grade — she had an urgent need for her mother to volunteer at her school regularly.
The role of parent volunteer wasn’t something that was natural for Tessa.
“That day, I’d spent several hours manning a snack table on a hot patch of pavement, swinging between feelings of resentment and judgment and envy. None of the other mothers present seemed to be conflicted about having given up hours of their day; in suits or jeans or summer dresses, they dashed around refilling platters, and organizing children into lines, as if to proclaim, ‘We got this!’ Or, no: ‘We love this!’ But that wasn’t quite yet, either.
‘We are this!’ Yes. ‘We are this!’ ‘This’ being the amalgamation of types, roles and ideal they appeared almost effortlessly to embody: graceful, homemaker, ass-kicking professional, tireless child advocate. In other words, the contemporary, feminine icon of success, poised down to her manicured fingers, never a gray hair showing, plucked, fit, content to manage logistics in the kitchen or boardroom—or the bedroom, presumably. One has to wonder if the extent to which women willingly play various roles (such that the roles themselves appear to to find them) is not itself a powerful example of perspective, bending. How else do so many of them succeed at over looking the fundamental injustice of having to do and be just about everything? Men get to act; women, to play at our risk ruin”.

“There aren’t so many people anymore, whose lives are about real connection, a real exchanging of ideas and revelations, even difficult ones. We are family, we have our computers and our phones and the things we do with them. But to be drawn into Charlie’s world, which one to become part of a very deep and ongoing conversation, to be pulled along the currents of his innermost, thoughts and conflicts, had to be attended to intimately in ways of the heart and mind—and soul, if I’m honest. I had only to say three or four words to him for the facet of his intimacy to turn on. He was right there, his rushing closeness, right there. And then suddenly it was not”.

“Lately, I’ve been meditating again on the question of femininity and motherhood, and I’ve found myself thinking of the way Camus described his mother, who was deaf and nearly mute. In his writing, she is always impossibly beautiful, in-assessable, passive, compliant, a sort of Cinderella, doomed by poverty and disability, to scrub others’ houses and watch in helpless grief when her children are subjected to the blows of injustice. In other words, she is the epitome of the feminine ideal, but not the ‘maternal’ ideal, for in a sense her solipsism betrayed him as a child. She was everything, and she was utterly unattainable; and it is tempting to blame her for Camus’s subsequent ravenousness for women: It is tempting to say something like: the condition of motherhood is a tragic one, or to be self-interested, or self-contained, is to doom one’s child. But I reject that out of hand. Look what became of Wah”.

“I had a sense of arriving at a vantage point from everything between us (including my irritation with his Don Juanian fixation on femininity) appeared to be justified. Our friendship wasn’t an ill-fated exercise in mutual vanity, two egos’
Sisyphean rehearsal of arrogant, and blasphemous lines; rather, we were ‘getting’ somewhere— if nowhere, other than closer to publishable articulation of his experience as a man”.

“If I still held you in a certain trust until a moment ago, now the precious membrane of our togetherness has been irretrievably torn”.

***Nemesi***….
“A goddess usually betrayed as the agent of divine punishment for wrongdoing or presumption”.

Perhaps I’m a masochist? Ha.. ha! ……but I admire this book …..and sure enjoyed it.

[fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When I accused Wah of being an insult to women--'an insult to womankind' was my unfortunate phrase--we were sitting with out husbands at a fashionable rooftop restaurant in downtown Los Angeles."

My Nemesis is a perfect cocktail of a novel, an impressive and skilful mix of cerebral and soapy, of intimate character study and juicy drama, of intellectual discussions and petty personal grudges.

For better or worse, the linchpin of My Nemesis is Tessa, a white, middle-aged writer who has made a career of engaging with and examining her life, particularly her marriages, from a feminist viewpoint. And frankly, nothing is more fitting than Tessa being the main character of this book because she already believes she is the main character of everyone else's lives. Highly educated, opinionated, and forthright, Tessa has shaped her beliefs and principles around feminist--and, to a lesser extent, existential--inquiry, alive to the ways in which she, as a woman, has been marginalized within the various spheres of her life (her relationships, her family, her work). This is all well and good, except that all of these characteristics that define Tessa are precisely the ones that make her such a flawed and parochial character (more on that later).

The other central female character of My Nemesis is Wah, the wife of Charlie, Tessa's scholar friend (and the object of her growing preoccupation/infatuation). And if Tessa is a fascinating character because we get to directly witness the lengths she'll go to to excuse and justify her behaviour, then Wah is a fascinating character precisely because we don't directly witness much of her at all. That is, because My Nemesis is Tessa's narrative, the version of Wah that we get is one who exists solely in relation to Tessa--and Tessa is an unreliable narrator when it comes to Wah, to put it lightly. She sees Wah as the antithesis of modern, enlightened womanhood, repelled by what she perceives as Wah's "traditional" and backwards femininity: her modesty, her emotional openness, her accommodating nature. Of course, for all her supposed intellectual rigour, Tessa continually elides the fact that her reading of Wah, a mixed-race Asian woman, very much feeds into, and cannot be divorced from, the ways in which Asian women have been historically stereotyped (as subservient, weak, docile). Tessa makes Wah out to be everything that she is not: if Wah is demure, Tessa is outspoken; if Wah is self-abnegating, Tessa is individualistic. In other words, Wah becomes a kind of prop for Tessa, someone she can use to bring herself--the Good Feminist Woman--into relief, someone she can treat as Exhibit A to make a point about womanhood or feminism, someone she can denigrate in order to aggrandize her own self--and someone upon whom she can pile all these supposedly feminist critiques when, in reality, she is extremely threatened by her.

"I'm aware of having something of a problem with laying blame. When you spend your life in consideration of human relations and your thoughts unavoidably chase down networks of behavioural causality, it's difficult to hold your tongue when your own blunders originate in others'."

What makes My Nemesis such an effective novel for me is how it is able to render a character who is at once a specific individual in their own right and yet also emblematic of a particular kind of individual--in this case, the privileged, self-absorbed thinker. Throughout the novel, we see how Tessa's narrative speaks to a certain brand of white feminism that is less concerned with feminism as a moral or ethical framework attuned to women's marginalization and inequity, and more concerned with using feminism as a kind of blunt tool that can be weaponized to protect the individual woman--that is, Tessa herself. In a very practical sense, Tessa's feminism is useful to her because she can leverage it not only to dismiss any number of perceived critiques of her person, but to validate her own petty critiques of other women.

Yet even with all of this in mind, the novel works not despite Tessa's flaws, but because of them. She is a character you can dislike, but she is never one you can discount--and therein lies the skill of Charmaine Craig's writing: she is able to write a character who is engaging even as she is selfish, petty, and abrasive. The narrative, we are told, is Tessa's attempt to come to terms with what happened when she and her husband became embroiled with Wah, her husband Charlie, and their adopted daughter Htet. We don't precisely know what happened, but Tessa tells us that she knows that she behaved poorly, and that she was not as self-aware as she had believed herself to be. My Nemesis, then, is Tessa's attempt not just to explain her behaviour, but also to critically interrogate it and recognize the ways in which it was biased, self-serving, unwarranted, unfair. Of course, self-awareness can only go so far--to be aware of having done something is exactly that: awareness. In fact, in many ways, Tessa's self-awareness only serves to make her complacent: if she can call out her own hypocrisies, then no one else can; she can claim to have done her due diligence by acknowledging awareness of her bad behaviour without actually acting to change it, or question its underlying motives. But even as Tessa is complacent, even as she makes excuses and circumvents issues, you still get the sense that she is genuinely trying: trying to evaluate herself, to reexamine her behaviour in a new light. Her attempts may be insufficient or elementary or long overdue, but they are attempts to be sure, and ultimately that's what kept me so invested in Tessa and her story. (You know that TikTok sound that's like "Is it me? Am I the drama?"? That's basically Tessa's character arc in a nutshell.)

If you've made it all the way to the end of this very long review, then you can probably tell that My Nemesis is a novel that gave me so much to think about. It's such an incisive, biting book, complete with an unreliable narrator who, for all her many flaws, still manages to be so compelling. A novel like this is always a tricky balancing act: the narrator has to be flawed enough to be unlikable, but also not so flawed that they become a caricature; they have to feel like they're genuinely grappling--or trying to grapple--with their flaws, but also not so much that the story becomes an afterschool special about them Learning Their Lesson. More than anything, that narrator needs to have a strong sense of interiority; I don't need to condone or agree with their actions, but I need to understand them. It's such a feat, then, that Charmaine Craig manages to pull it all off, and in 200 pages no less.

For all its nuanced ideas and conceptual explorations, My Nemesis is also about what happens when all that intellectual veneer is stripped away to reveal your garden-variety pettiness, selfishness, contempt, and insecurity. And reader, I. ate. it. all. up.

[hafsah · Rating 2 out of 5]

‘my nemesis’ is a thought-provoking 2023 release documenting an intellectual affair and its impact on the lives of two couples and their families.

this book is primarily a treatise on contemporary feminism. craig does a good job at conceptualising how a lot of women are erased in the modern era of *girlboss* feminism. we have a main character who identifies as a feminist, but her academic background frequently places her in a position that is alien to the majority of women, including charlie’s mixed-race asian wife, wah. it begs the question of how contemporary social norms and environments inform our relationships and the way we present ourselves.

it also effectively touches on the ways in which patriarchal and traditional norms constrict both men and women. a critique of masculinity and all the ways in which masculinity provides an escape: an escape from responsibility, an escape from accountability, an escape from loyalty, and an escape from parenthood. it's also a commentary on femininity. craig scrutinises female competition and rivalry and the ways in which feminism is exploited to further isolate certain archetypes of femininity. 

overall, this book felt like a piece of work written by someone who clearly knows what they are talking about but lacks the skill to adapt that knowledge to novel form and make it accessible. the author is extremely intelligent, but this book is dull, lacklustre, and suffused with random tangents on camus that felt overly excessive and highbrow. the start felt like i’d been dropped in the middle of a narrative and somehow been told to understand; the ending was completely out of the blue and felt messy for me. the bones and the ideas are there, the execution wasn't.

i was not a fan at all, unfortunately. it felt extremely pretentious, and not in a fun way.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a lot to say about this book, which I enjoyed immensely. But I think it's best approached cold, my review will get into a lot of the details and the summary copy says an awful lot as well. I would just pick it up and see if you are as grabbed from the first page as I was and then hang on.

I know many readers who get frustrated with books that play structural tricks, that suddenly pull the rug out from under you, like ASYMMETRY or TRUST EXERCISE. I would love to give MY NEMESIS to them instead because I think it may be able to give them the pleasures without the frustration. It is a book that is more than what it seems, but it is also not hiding anything from you. Somehow it is honest but it also is the kind of book that you want to restart the moment you finish. (I indulged myself and re-read the first couple of chapters immediately.)

Our narrator, Tessa, is a writer of nonfiction, all of it about her own life, she is her own unlikable female protagonist. Her books are pointed rejections of patriarchy, her life is all about the reclamation of the self. And yet the more we get to know her, the more it feels like maybe Tessa isn't what she thinks she is.

There was a point where it seemed to me that this novel was a spectacular takedown of white feminism. Tessa talks about what women should do, but really she is just talking about herself. She is just thinking about herself. She regards other women with suspicion and men with deference, she says one thing outwardly but lives it another way entirely. We see this play out with Charlie and Wah, a long-married couple Tessa meets after she strikes up a correspondence with Charlie, a philosopher and writer. Tessa and Charlie are immediately in sync, Tessa insists that Milton, her own husband, is also a fan of Charlie's. They could all be a happy foursome if Tessa didn't so obviously detest Wah.

We learn this from the first page. Tessa's vehemence towards Wah claims to be about Wah's lack of appropriate feminist ideals, but the more we read the more we see there is to the story. While Tessa almost never discusses race explicitly, it is an undercurrent that runs throughout the text, and Wah's Asian-ness is hard to forget when Tessa keeps discussing her as docile and gentle and weak. While in many ways they are opposites and rivals, in many others they are doubles. They both write about their own lives and the lives of their loved ones, they are both mothers struggling with their relationships with their daughters, they are both figureheads of feminism. Tessa rejects this doubling, which only makes it more distinctive. Alongside this we see the way Tessa writes about Charlie, the way she makes excuses for him and for herself, the way Charlie gets the benefit of every doubt but Wah never gets a fair shake. It leaves the reader asking more and more questions about Tessa's inability to see herself clearly.

Until things change. And then we start to question the story we have read, its perspective and its purpose. And we start to question how Tessa the writer of this story may differ from Tessa the character in it.

It is not a pull-the-rug-out story, but one where we do get to rethink and reconsider. I will complain a bit that the final act is too short for me, I wanted a bit more meat to sink my teeth into. It ends a bit too quickly.

I am sure there is a lot I missed here about Camus and Nietzche and other references Tessa and Charlie often make. The writing can be rather dense and often oblique. Sometimes Tessa would move on from a thought too quickly for me, before I could really tell what she meant. But there was also something I liked about that, a kind of impressionism in the writing that kept you from really pinning anything down. Still, I sped through it like a thriller, unable to put it down once I'd started. It is a book that asks very big questions about suffering and pain and love, about the very different ways we cope with truly terrible events.

I think this would pair well with Julia May Jonas' VLADIMIR, which also has a protagonist who views herself as a thinker and feminist but whose bona fides in that area come under suspicion the more you read. Though that one is much more action-y and this one more cerebral, they are both quick and interesting. Or another book that has very interesting structure without pulling the rug from under you and deals with feminist themes is Hernan Diaz's TRUST.

A short content note: Wah and Charlie's adopted daughter, Htet, experienced serious physical and sexual abuse as a child living on the streets before being brought to the US. This is not described in great detail on the page but it is referenced often and is worth noting for those who struggle with this topic.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes the shortest books have the meatiest content, and this is certainly the case in My Nemesis. If anything, I was reminded of Zoe Heller's remarking that a reader shouldn't look for friends between pages of novels, in that none of these characters would make good friends but are damn fun to spend time reading about.

[Cher 'N Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars = Meh. Intriguing enough to finish, but not enough to like it.

You know that bitter family member or coworker that thinks the world revolves around them, who believes they are smarter than everyone while they continuously over analyze the actions of others with heavy judgment, while never turning that analysis internally to do any self-reflection and perpetually considers themselves to be a victim because it is inconceivable that anything could ever be their fault? Well, that is who narrates this novel.

Much like the real life versions of the narrator, the fictional version’s company is equally tedious and tiresome to suffer. While visualizing herself as a contemporary feminist and champion of women, the heroine has an intellectual affair with the husband of one of her “friends” and obsessively ruminates over their differences as she scrutinizes the other’s perceived flaws. While I did not find this novel to be a good fit for my personal tastes, I do think I would enjoy a lively book club discussion around it.

Hours of a pompous circular narrative were painful to trudge through, and I should have heeded my instinct to DNF less than 10% in. But because it was short and I erroneously was hopeful it would improve, I continued until the very end, which was the only great part of the novel…because it finally provided some dopamine by concluding. I could only recommend this one to book club members, and those that enjoy pretentious, rambling inner monologues of unlikeable characters.
-------------------------------------------
First Sentence: When I accused Wah of being an insult to women — ‘an insult to womankind’ was my unfortunate phrase — we were sitting with our husbands at a fashionable rooftop restaurant in downtown Los Angeles.

Favorite Quote: What is falling out of love but a sort of crisis of perception?

[Lay · Rating 1 out of 5]

A bit too on the nose with the “psychological-thriller” claim - as I felt at times I was going to be declared clinically insane for having to step inside this mess of a narrator’s mind. Tessa is awful, to absolutely no one’s surprise. All she does is instigate conflict and emotional turmoil. Why are we arguing? Why is there conflict at all? Is talking about Camus really the one hill you want to die passionately on? Is this overly-metaphorical story whizzing straight over my head? I’m not sure. But this sucked to read.

If you love migraine inducing dialogue, long talks about Nietzsche and Camus, poorly developed characters/plot, purposeless infidelity and pretentiousness beyond your wildest imagination - “My Nemesis” may just be right up your alley.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The duality of feminism and what a woman should strive for is represented in two women who in ways are very much alike, but in even more important ways, are polar opposites.

Both Tessa and her adversary, Wah, are married women who have contentious relationships with their daughters (Tessa’s daughter, Nora, is the product of her first marriage; Wah adopted her daughter, Htet, who is a victim of child trafficking in Malaysia). Both are serious writers who leverage their own lives to create introspective and often personal books that are perceived as bastions of feminism. And both – to one degree or another – are attracted to Wah’s husband, Charlie, a scholarly philosophy professor who Tessa perceives as a potential intellectual equal. Tessa’s conversations with him catch fire as they both rely on imperfect nihilistic filters (Camus for Tessa and Nietzsche for Charlie) to understand the world more clearly.

But here is where the similarities end. Tessa, the narrator of this book, is an outspoken proponent of feminism, a self-deceiving and bitter white woman who considers Wah, a mixed-race Asian, to be an “insult to womanhood.” Wah’s devotional demeanor, her feminine appearance, and her fawning subservience is everything that Tessa abhors.

The questions that are raised by this rivalry simmer as the two couples (Tessa and her second husband Milton and Wah and Charlie) increasingly are in each other’s company. Are there unspoken rules that separate a good feminist from a wannabe one? Is service to another or deep feeling a form of weakness or an ultimate strength? What happens when self-deception conceals one’s own reality? When can women give themselves permission not to hang ourselves on the expected rope of self-sacrifice?

My Nemesis belies its spare size (less than 200 pages) by demanding the reader to pay careful attention at every step. As Tessa reveals more of herself by what she does – and does not – say, her rigidity and inability to accept another’s inner life nudges the book to its necessary conclusion. By carefully examining the intellectual, introspective, and barely acknowledged private lives of her characters, the author creates a work that positively bubbles with fury, desire, and conflict. I owe a big thanks to Grove Atlantic for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.

[Jolanta (knygupė)]

3.5*
Lengvai filosifinis, psichologinis pasakojimas apie sudėtingus dviejų moterų - memuarisčių rašytojų -santykius. Liečiamos temos: lyčių vaidmenys, motinystė/tėvystė, pasamoningas rasizmas, ar įmanoma vyro ir moters draugystė, moterų tarpusavio konkurencija, empatija (kaip skirtingai mes ją suprantam), egzistencinė vienatvė (ne šiaip sau pasakotojos mylimas rašytoja A. Camus).
Įdomiai sukonstruota knyga, su truputį nustebinusia pabaiga. Beje, tik pabaigoje paaiškėja kam ir kokia forma ši istorija yra pasakojama. Romanas man šiek tiek susišaukė su R. Cusk “Atsarginis pasaulis” (nepritempė iki jo, bet jo vaibas man jautėsi).

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down

My Nemesis reminded me of Vladimir: not just thematically (a white, educated middle-aged female protagonist recounts an intense story of obsession which is ostensibly about the subject of her obsession but tells the reader much more about the protagonist herself) but in terms of the intense reading experience it provided. I think this is best enjoyed by going in blind, but is one I would recommend (rating only rounded down because I would have preferred a bit more character development - I think this would have given the book more of an overall impact).

Thank you Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Ruben · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this psychological novel, Tessa, our middle-aged, white, intellectual narrator, has a crush on Charlie, a younger, handsome professor. Charlie is unhappily married to Wah and enjoys his philosophical discussions with Tessa deep into the night.

From the first sentence of the book it is clear that Tessa dislikes Wah's servile attitude:

"When I accused Wah of being an insult to women—“an insult to womankind” was my unfortunate phrase— we were sitting with our husbands at a fashionable rooftop restaurant in downtown Los Angeles."

Tessa's unwavering beliefs and modern principles, for instance in feminism, make her both imperious and unlikable as a character, but is she as cold-hearted as she seems?

Refreshing your Camus and Nietzsche before reading is a good idea, as they represent the nihilistic bases that shape Tessa's and Charlie's respective worldviews.

But when reality kicks in, when life kicks in - in the form of desire, or abuse, or inequality - how much is one's theoretical framework worth? Or do we just use our principles to justify our own behavior and weaknesses?

Anyway, that is about as far as I got, but there is much more to unpack in this short novel. It has something of Katie Kitamura, 'The Guest Lecture', 'Biography of X', 'White on White', but I found those slightly more accessible than this one. There are strong parts, especially towards the end, but admittedly some of it went over my head (in particular the parts I listened to on audio).

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 4 out of 5]

idk how i read this so quickly but i couldn't put it down. stressed me out in the best way

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic, Grove Press for my arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

"My Nemesis" by Charmaine Craig is a story purposefully told to us from the one-sided perspective of Tessa. Tessa is a successful writer who begins a friendship with Charlie, a philosopher and scholar from Los Angeles. The pair exchange ideas about Camus and Nietzsche and Tessa feels that they have a connection deeper than that of friendship. However, both Tessa and Charlie are married; Tessa's husband Milton adores Charlie and his few visits to them on the East Coast, but for Tessa, Charlie's wife, Wah, proves to be a frustrating image of womanhood. Complicating the friendship is Charlie and Wah's adopted Burmese daughter, Htet, who was the central figure in Wah's last publication. Our story comes to a head when during a dinner between the four of them, Tessa calls Wah "an insult to womankind." In the months following her outburst, Tessa must reconcile Wah as a figure of true weakness and the possibility that her perception of Wah was too narrow and too privileged.

I have to say that this is a story that's better read without too much information prior. It's a difficult read, at least for me, and I often found myself getting frustrated with Tessa and her white feminism. Craig's writing is absolutely fantastic and so enjoyable and the frustrations I felt with Tessa is a testament to Craig's writing. I think that Craig really hits on something that is really rarely discussed today that has to do with how privileged everyone in academia is even those who see themselves as being "woke" or liberally intellectual. Tessa is such an engaging character because she is a memoirist who specifically writes from her own experiences in order to dodge any cries of appropriation and while she is intelligent and conscious of intersectionalism/feminism, she is still bound by her own narrow perceptions of herself and those around her, especially Wah.

While we only get Wah through characterizations of Tessa, Charlie, and Milton, I absolutely adore her. I found a lot of myself in her because I too have been told by white feminists that I was "weak" or "not feminist" because of how I presented myself whether that be in clothing choices, how I spoke, how I conducted myself, etc. I think once we actually get to see Wah, we're not in the same place as Tessa who is shocked but instead, at least for me, we feel validation for Wah. I don't know if I'm phrasing all of this right, but I think so often, there is a particular form of feminism and the strength presented in that particular form that Charlie rightly calls Tessa out on, which involves denouncing traditional femininity and traditional feminine choices having to do with motherhood and relationships. This is especially highlighted in the contrasting relationships of Wah and Htet and Tessa and her daughter Eleanor.

Anyways, without going TOO deep into the story, I also want to say that Craig did a great job of exploring the themes of feminism, racism, gentrification, and class while also looking at the pretentious blindness of "woke" academics and scholars and the ways in which we further divide and set ourselves up as competitors in the name of liberalism.

Obviously, I highly recommend this one but warn that it is not an easy read!

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

a stunningly taut psychological thriller novella from Craig. such a short book packs a hell of a punch, we really get to dive into the jealous psyche of our narrator. will be reading more from Craig in the future!

[pauline · Rating 4 out of 5]

What first seems to be a recounting of a woman’s slightly obsessive relationship with a professor (Charlie - another woman’s husband) soon becomes an intensely thought-provoking piece of (at times) complex prose. While our protagonist Tessa, hates Wah (the other woman) seemingly inexplicably it becomes apparent the hatred stems from the way Wah makes her confront her own firm, rigid ideas about femininity, motherhood and marriage.

This is a highly philosophical read with an unreliable and untrustworthy main character which is right up my alley! I will say that because it is such a short book, Tessa’s thoughts sometimes came off as rushed but honestly that only aided my interest in her even though she was highly unlikeable. It was one of the aspects of Craig’s writing that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

[Caroll-Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

received this one as an arc, again not knowing anything about it. It‘s a really quick read with just a little over 200 pages and the writing is amazing but sadly this one just wasn‘t for me at all. I decided to look at the reviews of this book on Goodreads and read so many positive ones on this one and maybe the point of this book just really went over my head. Sure it is a thought provoking novel but sadly for me it was a complete miss. I almost dnf‘ed it to be honest but decided since it‘s such a short book to just finish it. And honestly this will probably a book that I have forgotten in just a few days because it just wasn‘t for me at all. Nonetheless the author has a way with words that I really like, so maybe I need to read one of her other books instead. This one sadly wasn‘t for me at all.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the author’s own words… “this is a record of meanness and, I admit, perhaps also one of anti-feminism, of how merciless women can be in scrutiny of one another and of how far we may go to prove ourselves enough to be liked.”

By making Tessa the point of view of the novel, Craig chose an easy unlikable target in the white female memoirist—privileged and successful—who cannot get out of her own imagined rivalries and refuses to let others off the hook. The result is a one-dimensional caricature and a waste of all the themes thrown in but kept only at a surface level. The tonal shift at the end is too self-absorbed to make any resemblance of character development believable. Her own daughter or even Wah would have made for more interesting narrators.

[Matthew Keating]

A novel about race, femininity, and the ways we are blind to ourselves. My Nemesis concerns the relationship between two women: the narrator, Tessa, a white woman and memoirist, and her counterpart, the Asian-American writer Wah.

Tessa is living an apparently content but also boring existence with her second husband, Milton; she has a daughter from her first marriage named Eleonore, who is now in college and from whom Tessa is virtually estranged. Tessa’s life is reinvigorated when she comes into contact online with a philosopher, Charlie, who quickly involves himself in the life of her and her husband: he’s so charismatic, and both of them like him so much, that he seems to revitalize their relationship. Meanwhile, the nature of the relationship between Tessa and Charlie is taut to the point of snapping and becoming some kind of extramarital affair. This is perhaps exacerbated when Tessa and Milton begin to spend more and more time with not just Charlie but also his wife, Wah, and their adopted daughter, Htet. Htet is a fifteen-year-old girl from Burma who had been sold into slavery in Malaysia by her family before being adopted by Wah; she is also the subject of Wah’s only published book.

The small cast of characters allows for a novel that uses parallels and contrasts to create a house of mirrors, refracting and bending depending on the juxtaposition of the characters: we’re interested not only in the parallels between Tessa and Wah, but also those between Tessa and Charlie, and the differences in their situations, especially due to gender. Tessa is highly invested in a certain ideal of feminism, and as such has strong opinions about what the life of a woman should be. Tessa perceives her relationship with Wah to be competitive and antagonistic: in Tessa’s mind, Wah is a portrait of the kind of femininity that Tessa finds abhorrent, namely her avoidance of conflict but also, importantly, her appearance and presentation.

The novel uses two large-scale devices I am fond of: the book itself is structured as a letter or series of letters, though to whom is not clear until near the end, and the narrator is wildly unreliable. Sometimes I worry that the public associates an author so closely with the voice she writes in that the unreliable narrator, especially the prejudiced narrator, is in danger of disappearing; unfortunately, I can all-too-easily see someone picking up this book and decrying it as racist without thinking too hard about it, just because the voice on the page is sometimes explicitly a racist voice. But the beauty of Charmaine Craig’s book is the subtext, all of the things left unsaid by the woman who doesn’t get to tell the story, and all of the things the reader learns from the narrator that the narrator doesn’t intend for the reader to learn. To write circuitously, to use language to outline the shape of something without filling it in, is a tremendously finicky and difficult task, and one that I think Craig accomplishes.

A fascinating novel that lives between its own lines, or perhaps under its own skin.

[lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was such a waste of time. I only read it because it was so short, but I should have let it go. The thing that's good about it is that it's so well written that you hate every single character in the whole book, except for maybe the neighbor Ernie, who has no dialogue in the book. The main character Tessa is exactly the kind of person I've spent my life hating -- way too smart, takes offense to everything, and looks for ways to put down women. It is written in the vein of My Education by Susan Choi meaning it's very wordy, and ultimately goes nowhere.

[grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knew 200 pages of an insufferable narrator justifying her shitty personality would be so entertaining! Tessa is so delusional and unlikeable in the best way possible. I couldn’t stop reading and looked forward to picking the book back up every time I had to set it down.

[Debi Ang · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5✨

First off, I was completely smitten with the WRITING. The story itself yes; but the writing was phenomenal. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

A cleverly written novel about a woman named Tessa, who is a writer and has this attitude of always being the smartest person in the room. She believes herself to be a “true feminist” what we call “white feminism” if you will... Though she is married to Milton, she falls in love with another writer Charlie; who is everything she should despise. A misogynist. Charlie is married to Wah (mixed raced); who is described as a quiet, passive woman, who in all actuality, is very smart and strong. Tessa does not like Wah because she preserves her as being “basic” when the truth is, she’s incredibly jealous and wants Charlie all to herself. Throughout this story, we follow along with Tessa as the narrator as she criticizes everyone around her, including her daughter she has a strained relationship.

This story showed how contradictory one can be when it comes to matters of the heart, or otherwise. How when you feel entitled to something, and judge a book by its cover you can miss a great opportunity to learn something great about yourself and others before it’s too late.

Quote from the book:

“Is it always like that, with someone who gives too much and another who takes mercilessly? A tale of martyrdom and narcissism, or a tale of love and temperament—which one is this, would you say?”

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝑵𝒐𝒘, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒖𝒑 𝒐𝒏𝒆’𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆.

Tessa and Charlie begin a correspondence when he sends a response to her essay about the relevance of Camus. She feels, through his intelligence and flattery, that their ‘minds could keep a certain, rare company’. She discovers he is a published philosophy professor at a research university near L.A., and it doesn’t hurt that he is a sexy middle-aged man. She includes her own husband, Milton, in the letters and they become a trio. Then there is the wife, the ‘fourth person’ Tessa would rather didn’t exist at all. The flippant attitude Tessa has about Charlie and his wife Wah’s twenty-year marriage reveals a lot about her character from the start. She points out herself that she is aware of having a problem with where to lay blame, while also exonerating herself for her outbursts or failing interactions with others. In fact, her own daughter rejects her. Tessa’s perceptions betray her, and she falls deep into Charlie’s reality. She holds Wah’s ethnicity against her, as if some cultural clash is the cause of her failure to be the wife Charlie needs. Tessa is a feminist, yet with distaste mocks Wah’s intelligence, accomplishments and worse, her familial arrangement with their adopted Burmese daughter, Htet. Htet is a victim of child trafficking, and Tessa has opinions on that as well. Tessa and Charlie’s correspondence crosses a boundary when he first shares his marital problems, naturally she thinks Wah isn’t worthy of him. When Tessa and Milton visit Charlie, she sees Wah as subservient, assigning some sort of motives on her to appear like a suffering wife, when in fact Tessa is the interloper. I love it, there is something diabolical in Tessa’s pompous thinking, and Charmaine Craig has created this perfect disaster.

Tessa has a narrative in her head about Wah and never imagines for a moment that there are bigger things in her world than Tessa’s presence. We already know there is something illicit between Tessa and Charlie, a sort of blurring of the lines of innocent friendship. Of course, she has blame to shoulder, regardless of what she wishes to convince herself and the reader. Why is Wah her nemesis anyway? Why does she call her ‘an insult to womankind’ and what makes her the authority on ‘womankind’? Tessa even takes offense at her economic struggles, as if it’s some sort of scheme to appear noble. Wah seems to be raising Htet without much help from her husband Charlie, it’s a strange situation. Why is Tessa so obsessed with their domestic dramas? There are a few lines that expose Tessa, “She could never simply agree with me, Wah. She always had to push back with some idea that threw a moral shadow onto mine- and then retreat…” What a strange thought for a woman who claims another is weak. There is something superficial about her, for someone who comes off as such an intellectual snob, she misses a lot. She almost seems to hate women herself.

Tessa insinuates herself deeply in Charlie, Wah and Htet’s lives that nothing, but chaos can descend. This is quite a tale, one full of provocative questions about feminine virtues, loyalty, marriage, friendship, envy, and motherhood. It is about cruelty; how cruel women can be to each other. This novel went places I didn’t expect, it is combative and painful with tragic twists. It exposes the arrogance those on their moral, intellectual high ground embody. Intense. Yes, read it! There is so much more I’d love to unravel but I don’t want to give the story away.

Publication Date: February 7, 2023 Available Now

Grove Atlantic

Grove Press

[Madison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not going to lie I requested the ARC of this from NetGalley because that cover has me in an utter choke hold. Stunning.

I do plan to buy this book in a physical copy, and read it after I have read some of Camus litterateur. I also hope that at a later date in a mind set more keen on this microscope observation, I may have a better time with it.

My Nemesis is a very intellectual portrayal of Tessa and her relationships with the people surrounding her, somewhat warped, morally grey and challenging to read at times. The betrayal runs deep and had myself feeling many emotions most prominently a combination of frustration and empathy.

Tessa’s exploration into these connections, with Wah in particular forces her to open her own eyes. The discussions are interesting, I however did not feel any connection to any of the characters, I also found the language highly elevated throwing me out of my depths. Like I said I do plan to give this another go, but only read this if you enjoy a slow conversation between highly intelligent individuals.



“So what does that make us, Camus and me and someone like Charlie? Fantasists like Don Juan? Or only people who need, now and again, to seek refuge from the reality of their lives, the truth of themselves?”

[Nicole Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the most thought provoking read I’ve experienced in quite a while. In the style of a fictional memoir, the narrator explores her internal misogyny and her relationship with other women and femininity.

She believes the ‘trad wife’ lifestyle and subservience to your husband is a weakness and insult to womankind, but slowly explores whether her friend Wah is simply strong in different ways.

I love how this book allowed room for me to self-reflect on my my own attitudes and beliefs, as well as educating me on some really interesting philosophical questions/debates.

[Ica · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

Read too much like Vladimir. Might pick it up again somewhere in the future. Maybe it would've been better if it was from Wah's POV.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

a little overly intellectual to the point of abstracting character

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not what I was expecting having read Miss Burma by the same author five years ago.
This is a very different, and contrastingly short, book. I didn’t find it terribly enjoyable.
In a mere 182 pages we are treated to extensive philosophical musings (primarily centred on Albert Camus with some Friedrich Nietzsche thrown in; they kick the book off with epigraphs selected from their work (cited as A.C. and F.N.).

The reader is presented with numerous verbatim extracts from Camus’s work, and also as acted out by one of the characters (Charlie) whose lifestyle is clearly designed to illustrate Camus’s idea of “the absurd” and his key example of Don Juan, the itinerant loverman. The Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus is cited.
Separately there’s marital discord and (especially emotional) infidelity, all accompanied by a car crash series of “blended” family dynamics in which the young generation generally despise their parents and step - parents.

The book is set in coastal America (east and west) and the solitary link to Charmaine Craig’s previous novel is the character Htet, a teenage girl whose wretched childhood in Burma evokes the descriptions of abuse and exploitation that featured in Miss Burma.

The Interpersonal Dynamics

• The Women. Tessa, Wah Weldon

I’m uncertain whether the verbal tussles between Tessa and Wah are a plausible and consistent analysis of feminism, presented as a contrast with old style femininity with its focus on beauty.
Or is their mounting distrust (simply) a rivalry, between two women, to secure the favour of one man (Charlie): in other words ‘a love triangle'.

The text is littered with feminist musings and the nature of motherhood.

o 131 we prioritised ourselves (not the children).
o 136 “the connection between a girls need to be liked and a woman’s need to please men”
o 53 Tessa “ what do YOU most fear as a mother, I mean besides self- sacrifice?” Certainly not my child’s death”
o 98 “how do women succeed at overlooking the fundamental injustice of having to do and be just about everything?”
o 189 the condition of motherhood is a tragic one, for to be self-interested or self-contained is to doom ones child.”

• Daughters. Eleo(nora) and Htet. It’s a pity the two girls never get to meet. They share a rudeness and barely concealed hostility towards parental figures throughout the book.

• The Husbands. Charlie and Milton

Charlie is the vehicle through whom Craig channels the philosophies of both Camus and Nietzsche in his verbal declarations and his actions. Charlie is a relatively low key womaniser. Two peripheral women (in the overall narrative-Melyssa and Maia) are drawn to his striking physical good looks, though his connection with Tessa (he is a married man) is predominantly cerebral (infidelity).

• Minor characters Duane, Joaquin , Ernie, Shirley

Each of the four characters have small cameo parts in the story. Were any of them necessary? What did they add?

Philosophy

• Camus

Do I want to read a novel with Camus exposition? Am I qualified to read a book about Camus without studying his work?
The references to Camus and Nietzsche proliferate. I struggle to make some coherent meaning in relation to the marital discord that runs through the book.

o 15 Camus: “One day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins”
o 58 Camus says ”there are places where the mind dies so that a truth which is its very denial may be born”
o 89 ”Sisyphus stood for Camus as the figurehead for his early phase, Nemesis represented what he hoped to achieve ultimately with his work… goddess of retribution… she was also the goddess of love”
o 161 Camus says those who love truth must seek love in marriage
o 187 Camus on Sisyphus: “the struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart”
o 191 “so what does that make us, Camus and me and someone like Charlie? Fantasists like Don Juan? Or only people who need, now and again, to seek refuge from the reality of their lives, the truth of themselves?


• Nietzsche

o 113 Tessa says- “Nietzsche is for Charlie what Camus has been for me: an imperfect filter, a way of seeing the world more clearly”
o Nietzsche’s bow: truth and value is a key reflection for Charlie
o 139 Nietzsche’s abhorrence of asceticism
o 180 Tessa asked Charlie to explain Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence- was it related to Camus Sisyphus? Answer: to test a persons ability to affirm life.

Overall my sense is that Craig has aspired to produce a work of scholarship, with an intellectual rigour that is deliberately in contrast to the bildungsroman of her (fascinating) family background and upbringing in Burma. When Craig was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize in 2018 she acknowledged “I continue to choose to write fiction because its difficulty appeals to me”, and her summary of what has turned out to be My Nemesis was: “I’m working on a novel that attempts to associate themes of faith, womanhood, displacement, and social justice, and that is set, mostly, in contemporary times.”

I found it to be a book that was messy, incohesive, and which ultimately left me confused as to the author’s message or outlook as expressed through her characters.

[zeyneb · Rating 3 out of 5]

bu zor günlerde kadınlara dair kitaplara sarılıyorum, her ne kadar bu kitabın tüm dairliği kadınların arasındaki rekabet de olsa bu rekabeti derinlemesine incelenmesini her seferinde okurum

[Amanda Nikhol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Narcissism and insecurity