The Behaviour of Love

From 2016 Man Booker longlisted Virginia Reeves comes a moving and riveting new novel about the head doctor of a mental institution whose marriage and job come under threat when he and a younger patient develop a relationship. Doctor Ed Malinowski believes he has realized most of his dreams. A passionate, ambitious behavioural psychologist, he is now the superintendent of a mental institution and finally turning the previously crumbling hospital around.

He also has a home he can be proud of, and a fiercely independent, artistic wife Laura, whom he hopes will soon be pregnant. But into this perfect vision of his life comes Penelope, a beautiful, young epileptic who should never have been placed in his institution and whose only chance at getting out is Ed. She is intelligent, charming and slowly falling in love with her charismatic, compassionate doctor.

As their relationship grows more complicated and Laura stubbornly starts working at his hospital, Ed must weigh his professional responsibilities against his personal ones and find a way to save both his job and his family. A love triangle set in one of the most chaotic, combustible settings imaginable, The Behaviour of Love is an incredibly compulsive, poignant exploration of marriage, lust, and ambition from one of America's great young literary talents.