Sabine is a theoretical physicist from Berlin and Renata is a prominent Polish-born American investor. They arrange to meet for the first time in the lounge of a Boston hotel, where Sabine wants to discuss a personal matter.

They touch on a succession of topics: quantum gravity (Sabine’s academic specialty); Renata’s strange diet and her famous husband Mark, who’s a mathematician; Jewish jokes; high school memories; numerous intellectual figures and ideas; Haiti rescue efforts, Cuban boleros and Frank Sinatra; the Holocaust—and the BRCA mutation that causes breast cancer. But every time they get near Sabine’s personal matter, they meander back into safer currents.

Sabine slowly comes to the point: she encountered Renata’s husband in a professional setting and fell deeply in love with him. She propositioned him, but Mark demurred in consideration of his wife, despite her unconventional views on marriage. Ashamed, Sabine determined that his rejection would be the end of the story—except for the intrigue of those unconventional views. Thus, she contacts Renata for answers.

Sabine gets more than she bargained for. Renata comes prepared. She knows about Sabine and she has her own agenda which may include bringing Sabine into her family.

In its form, This Isn’t Easy for Me is a contemporary conversation, a novel conveyed only by the women’s dialogue. In its substance, it is a story that spans decades but is told in one afternoon, a meditation about fidelity and what matters most in the many ways to live, love—and die.