Love, If That’s What It Is

Dutch playwright Schermer explores themes of romantic ennui and individuality in her scintillating debut, a yearlong account of a deteriorating marriage. After 25 years with David, Terri is at a crossroads: once attracted to her husband’s loyalty, steadiness, and dependability, she is now repulsed by his stick-in-the-mud demeanor. After she tells David about her lover, Lucas, an adventurous if nihilistic bachelor, David is floored, as are their children. Their teenage daughter, Krista, copes by pursuing a secret romance, and their younger daughter, Ally, tells Terri to “stop hurting Daddy.” Several months later, David finds his own lover, Sev, on a dating app. Schermer’s crisp prose style captures the heart-wrenching emotions roiling the characters. Of David’s whirlwind of guilt and pleasure over his relationship with Sev, a single mother whom he sees only in her apartment, Schermer writes that he’s found “not a relationship, just this island in time.” The author expertly humanizes each of the characters’ desires and flaws as she illuminates the raw, inner workings of a broken marriage. This is as cathartic as it is gut-churning. (Feb.)