Martha Southgate: Out of Reach

Martha Southgate’s most recent novels are Third Girl from the Left and The Fall of Rome. She has written for many magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times Book Review. She is the recipient of a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts grant and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

  Excerpt: Out of Reach
by Martha Southgate

I stayed out into the evening with another man. I came quietly into my bedroom in the dark, ridiculously late. My husband would ask where I’d been, his voice pained. I knew I was hurting [him]. But I couldn’t stop.