I agree with the publisher's use of the word 'inventive' in describing this debut novel, <b>Asymmetry</b> by Lisa Halliday. The book consists of two novellas and a coda. I enjoyed both novellas, so different in the setting and characterization. The coda was fun and a well-tuned summation of an old very accomplished male novelist. I rarely make an issue of likability of characters, but I have to say that the two younger protagonists of the novellas won me over. The older famous author had his moments, but in the end, he rang the old familiar bell of a male narcissistic writer.

The young woman, Alice, is an editor who wants to write but flounders and fills up her time in a relationship with Ezra, the famous writer. As Ezra continues to pound out the novels that make him rich and famous, Alice isn't going anywhere in her professional or artistic life. Alice is a kind person who takes care of people or tries hard to do the right thing. She is on the verge of an adult life that should be exciting and fulfilling. Can she get there by taking the path she is being asked to choose?

Amar is the young narrator of the second novella, "Madness," that gives us the insanity of the war in Iraq and the striving of immigrants to the USA. Amar's parents settled in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn where the boys grew up, enjoying the life that was carved out for them. The setting of Amar's story is a holding room at Heathrow airport. He is on his way to Kurdistan to see his brother who currently lives there. The delay in his trip is long, and the story of his life and his recollections of all that has passed since his childhood in Brooklyn is illuminating.

I know that editors are excellent writers, but that doesn't always translate into a talent for creating novels. In Lisa Halliday's case, the product of her writing is stellar. <b>Asymmetry</b> is a fresh young work of literary fiction. Thank you, NetGalley, the author, and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review this e-ARC, coming out in February 2018.

While I am personally tired of old-man-writer-takes-young-and-impressionable-mistress kinds of stories, particularly in today’s climate that is so focused on (rightfully) exposing the ugliness and imbalance of these relationships in real life, I was nonetheless very impressed by Halliday’s writing and especially taken with the second half of the book. An odd and intriguing read.

Lisa Halliday has created a work of stunning originality. Consisting of three distinct sections, Asymmetry presents more of a work of concept than either plot or character. The three plots have subtle connections that the reader sometimes has to work at discovering. The first, Folly, concerns the May/December romance of Alice, a young editor living in an upper west side apartment, and her relationship with Ezra Blazer, a much older, prominent author who guides her senses of self and taste. Madness, the center story, at first seeming to be totally unconnected, concerns Amar, an American born of Iraqi immigrants, a victim of racial profiling who finds his attempts to spend a lengthy layover in London stymied by NAS (think TSA in Britain). Amar's story is told in retrospect as he waits out the hours in a holding room in Heathrow. The two stories are separated by five years, but there is a tenuous connection between the two characters, so subtle, it could be missed entirely. In the final section, Ezra tells an interviewer what music he would choose to have with him should be become stranded on a desert isle, and embellishes his biography around his choices. Each of these elements could stand alone, the first two being the length of novellas, but together, they make for compelling, exciting reading