“The strangest thing about jealousy is that it can populate an entire city—the whole world—with a person you may never have met.” These first words set the framework for The Possession, a striking portrait of a woman after a love affair has ended. Annie Ernaux pulls the reader through every step of jealousy, of a woman’s need to know who has replaced her in a lost beloved’s life. Ernaux’s writing, characteristically gorgeous in its precision, depicts the all too familiar human tendency to seek control and certainty after rejection.”