Summary

As an old man Paul Roberts, the protagonist, reflects on his past. He opens the story by rhetorically asking if it is better to love more and suffer more, or love less and suffer less. He responds to this question by stating that it is not within anyone’s control how much they love. He also says that one’s story of love is the only story worth telling of one’s life. Paul begins to tell the story of his youth. He was 19 years old in the mid-1960s, and he lived in a suburban English town often referred to as “The Village” (4). The summer after Paul’s first year of college, he went home and joined the local tennis club, at his mother’s suggestion. One day, at the tennis club, he met Susan Macleod, a 48-year-old married woman. They played together...