Aryn Kyle, author of the best seller, The God of Animals, recently revealed her long affair with a married man, one of her former college professors. In her effort to make the relationship work, she admits she spent the $500,000 she earned for her first book in an attempt to buy her way into the hearts of the disaffected family. Her efforts didn’t work and she didn’t feel less guilty. (“How I Lost $500,00 for Love,” by Aryn Kyle, More, March 2013, pgs. 68-74.l
On the surface, Aryn Kyle and I have little in common. She is young and I am old. She is a successful writer. I have yet to be discovered by most of the world. But I did fall in love with a married man once. I know about waiting endlessly for phone calls that never come and the need to meet in places unfrequented by acquaintances. As for guilt, I know about that, too, though I didn’t have $500,000 to expatiate it. I simply walked away when I realized too many people were being hurt and that I didn’t want a relationship that was dishonest. But like Kyle must have done, I bled a long, long time.
Kyle’s bitter experience has shaped her world, I’m sure, as my experience has shaped mine. In a perverse way, she may have benefited, if there’s any truth to the notion that artists must suffer. Certainly her guilt will thread its way through her writing and so, artistically, she will have gained more than the $500,000 she lost. There is one other consolation. She’s not alone in her mistake.
(Courtesy of booktopia.com.au)
