The Portrait of a Mirror

Wes and Diana are the kind of privileged, well-educated, self-involved New Yorkers you may not want to like but can't help wanting to like you. With his boyish good looks, blue-blood pedigree, and the recent tidy valuation of his tech startup, Wes would hove made any woman weak in the knees - except perhaps his wife. Brilliant to the point of cunning, Diana possesses her own arsenal of charms, handily deployed against Wes in their constant wars of will.

Vivien and Dale live in Philadelphia, but with ties to the same prep schools and management consulting firms, they're of the same ilk. With a carefully curated wedding on the horizon, they make a picture-perfect pair - at least on Instagram. But when Vivien becomes a visiting curator it the Metropolitan Museum of Art just as Diana is starting a new project in Philadelphia, the two couples' lives cross and tangle. It's the summer of 2015, and they're all enraptured by one another and too engulfed in desire to know what they want - despite knowing just how to act.

In this wickedly fun debut, A. Natasha Joukovsky crafts an absorbing portrait of modern romance, rousing real sympathy for her flawed characters even as she skewers them. Shrewdly observed, whip-smart, and shot through with wit and good humor, The Portrait of a Mirror is a piercing exploration of narcissism, desire, self-delusion, and the great mythology of love.