“There’s a comfort, I guess, to being inside the middle of a book, which is why I stay in a book for such a long time.” This is how Jeffrey Eugenides explains the years-long gaps that have fallen between his three novels, the most recent of which, The Marriage Plot, hit shelves earlier this month. It tells the story of Madeleine, a literature major at Brown in the 1980s, and the complicated love triangle she’s involved in. Madeleine’s senior thesis is on the marriage plot, a device found in many 19th century novels. There is a certain irony in this; Eugenides’s novel describes Madeleine’s struggle to decide which man she should marry, the troubled Leonard or the more stable Mitchell.

Though his story may have an old-fashioned feel to it, Eugenides proves that there is a place for the marriage plot in contemporary literature. He will read from the novel as a part of Inprint’s Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. 7:30 p.m. Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas. For information, call 713-521-2026 or visit www.inprinthouston.org. Free to $5.

Wed., Oct. 26, 2011

This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2011.