The Complicities

D’Erasmo’s fifth novel (after Wonderland) is told in the voice of the 50-ish Suzanne, whose lifestyle as a wealthy housewife ends abruptly when her husband, Alan, a charming sociopath, is imprisoned for financial crimes. She divorces him, estranging herself from her son, and moves to a Cape Cod resort town, where she ekes out a modest existence as a masseuse. Suzanne volunteers with community members assisting a whale beached on a nearby shore, prompting musings on society’s wider complicities in destroying the environment. Later—the novel’s timeline is purposefully vague—Alan is released and marries a once beautiful woman named Lydia, now partially disfigured from a fiery accident. Suzanne ultimately connects with Lydia and Alan’s mother, Sylvia, a nomadic older woman who supports herself through small-time gambling and must ultimately ask herself how complicit she was in Alan’s crime.