The End of the Affair

Narrated by a successful fiction writer (Maurice Bendrix, a stand-in for Greene himself), The End of the Affair describes his passionate love affair with a married woman. When she abruptly ends the affair without explanation, Bendrix is confused and bitter, and his investigation leads to a religious explanation that causes him to redirect his anger toward God. While the affair itself is well-told through the rich interior thoughts of Bendrix, the overly literal views of God’s involvement in human affairs is odd and even absurd. Perhaps one needs to have a very different conception of God to find such impassioned pleas so compelling.