Spouses who cheat usually don’t do so because their fling is more attractive than their partner. We learned this years ago from a widely noted survey of cheaters. What attracts them is that the person they desire is more exciting. Theodora Keogh’s 1954 novel The Fascinator encapsulates this idea. It’s about a woman’s attraction to a man who’s more exciting than her husband. The other man, Zanic, is ugly due to a congenital condition that made his brows and ears grow so he looks like an ape, and he’s also overweight. But no matter—he’s a sculptor and an elegant speaker and all the rest, so the story, as it develops, follows whether the main character Ellen will actually cheat with this persistent and somewhat creepy ogre of a man who she finds more exciting than her handsome but normal husband. It’s not the type of book we usually read, but blame the cover art for that. It drew us because we thought it might be another Sandro Symeoni effort for Ace Books. It’s uncredited, but we suspect Sandro’s brush. Why? Look here. In any case The Fascinator is well written and thoughtful.
