Alien Hearts

Alien Hearts is the story of three lovers bound by bitterness as much as by passion.

Maupassant's artist hero falls for a woman of the world, a dazzling beauty whose past with an abusive husband leads her to hold him -- like other men -- at arm's length.

He seeks solace with his doting mistress but remains racked by pointless infatuation with the femme fatale.

Master translator Richard Howard's new English version of this complex and brooding psychological novel reveals the final, unexpected flowering of the great French realist's art.