Six of the best books about failed marriages

Jean Hanff Korelitz's new novel is You Should Have Known.

One of her favorite books about failed marriages, as shared at The Daily Beast:

The Comfort of Strangers
by Ian McEwan

For sheer perversion it doesn't get any better than Robert and Caroline, a married couple in Ian McEwan's 1981 novel, The Comfort of Strangers. These highly disagreeable people are perfectly matched and thoroughly lethal; they set upon another couple, the divorced Mary and her lover, Colin, who are vacationing in Venice, and gradually destroy them, first psychically and then murderously. It's excruciating to witness, but (thanks to McEwan's incredible gift) you just can't look away. When it's over you think: That could never happen to me. Then you realize: That could totally happen to me. It’s not a very pleasant feeling.

Read about the other entries on the list. 

The Comfort of Strangers is on a list of five books that changed Evie Wyld, Kate Kellaway's top ten list of fictional holidays, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best visits to Venice in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue