Erin Somers, "The Ten Year Affair: A Novel" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)

Nov 5, 2025

Erin Somers, a reporter and novelist known for her acclaimed work, discusses her latest novel, which follows Cora and Sam, two parents entangled in an affair that unfolds across parallel timelines. She draws inspiration from real-life baby-group experiences, weaving humor and relatable moments into the narrative. Somers explores marriage, longing, and the complications of friendship through vivid anecdotes, while addressing themes of aging and isolation intensified by the pandemic. Her insights into creating complex characters and emotional depth are particularly engaging.

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ANECDOTE

Multiverse Idea Sprang From A Baby-Group Story

Erin Somers found the book's multiverse conceit while writing a baby-group short story and typed the word "multiverse" into her draft.
The idea felt organic and she followed it into a larger novel because it emerged intuitively from the language of the story.

ANECDOTE

Extreme Potty-Training Met Reality

Erin recounts a real baby-group parent who attempted potty training a six-week-old by holding the infant over a toilet in a store bathroom.
The real scene directly inspired the novel's funny and empathetic depiction of extreme parenting rituals.

INSIGHT

Make The Spouse Believable To Complicate Sympathy

Somers deliberately refuses to villainize Elliot, making him lovable and plausible rather than an obvious reason to cheat.
That choice complicates sympathy and shows infidelity arises from nuance, habit, and longing, not cartoonish cruelty.

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When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is undeniable. Both are happily married young parents with two kids, and neither sees themselves as the type to engage in an affair. Yet their connection grows stronger, and as their lives continue to intertwine, the romantic tension between them becomes all-consuming—until their worlds unravel into two parallel timelines. In one, they pursue their feelings. In the other, they resist.
As reality splits, the everyday details of Cora’s life—her depressing marketing job, her daughter’s new fascination with the afterlife, her husband’s obsession with podcasts about the history of rope—gain fresh perspective. The intersecting and diverging timelines blur the boundaries of reality and fantasy, questioning what might have been and what truly matters.
The Ten Year Affair is a witty, emotionally-charged exploration of marriage, family life, and the roads not taken, that ultimately asks: do we really want our fantasies to come true?

Erin Somers is a reporter and news editor at Publishers Lunch. Her first novel, Stay Up with Hugo Best was a Vogue Best Book of the Year in 2019. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, The Best American Short Stories, and many other publications. She lives in Beacon, New York, with her family.

Recommended Books:

Flesh, David Szlay

Loved and Missed, Susie Boyt

Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers.

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