The Only Story by Julian Barnes

This is a well written, sad but oddly comforting story told in the way that this author does as well as anyone.  
Barnes has been exploring the May-December romance and this time it involves a 19 year old man and a 48-year old woman.  The woman is damaged from an early age.  She had an uncle who sexually abused her and has a husband who physically abuses her.  She meets Paul at her tennis club and he falls hard for her.  The intensity of her feelings are harder to gauge, and are likely deeply colored by her traumatic history.  The relationship spans years and comes to an end not because of their age difference or a change of heart, but because of Susan's addiction, both to alcohol and her abusive husband.  The last section of the book is a kind of "what if" scenario that is odd and yet, the whole premise is not entirely within reason.  If the writing is the most important part of reading a book, this is a story well told.