Malina

Half detective novel, half love story, half psychoanalytic case study, Malina is a stunning portrait of a writer trying to tell her own story in a male-dominated world. A woman in postwar Vienna walks a tightrope between the two men in her life. There is her lover, Ivan, handsome and unattainable, who obsesses her. And there is Malina, the civil servant with whom she shares an apartment: reserved, fastidious, demanding, and chillingly calm. As the balance of power between them begins to shift, she feels her fragile identity crumble, gradually revealing the dark and wounded heart of her past.