Duchess of Nothing

the long version

"After leaving her husband and her suffocating marriage for the romance and promise of Rome, the narrator of Duchess of Nothing has her freedom but is still trapped by the routine of life and haunted by her past. Charming, manic, and acutely aware of her own precarious grasp on the world around her, the narrator speaks with a kind of absurd logic that makes the book impossible to put down."--Publisher's website. Even after leaving her husband and a suffocating marriage, a woman finds herself trapped by the routines of life and coping with her self-absorbed lover, Edmund, with the only break in her routine being Edmund's precocious seven-year-old brother.