Green Dot by Madeleine Gray review – witty tale of obsessive love

A young millennial begins an affair with her fortysomething boss, in a debut that’s nicely ironic while avoiding nihilism

Why do smart women expect their lovers to leave their wives, despite overwhelming evidence that the contrary is more likely? Australian critic Madeleine Gray is the latest writer to explore this question, in an acutely witty debut that charts, in painful detail, the inexorable arc of an affair between a disaffected millennial and her older, married boss.

The story is not original. That’s the point. Other recent novels examining similar relationship dynamics include Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends, Imogen Crimp’s A Very Nice Girl and Laura Warrell’s Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm. Yet Green Dot’s potency lies in its narrator’s distinctive voice, ruthless self-scrutiny and droll observations on the absurdities of young adult life. That narrator is Hera: 24, world-weary, hyperaware of every cliche attached to her situation, and its& likely outcome. But when you really want someone, you go for it, she tells us, consequences be damned.