IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO come to Lionel Shriver’s Double Fault without thinking of her Orange prize-winner We Need to Talk About Kevin. The story of a mother who hates her son (who then takes a crossbow to his classmates in a Colombine-style massacre), We Need to Talk About Kevin was about two things that society is most uncomfortable with: bad mothers and child killers. It was unrelenting and sparked heated — even hysterical — debate about the nature of motherhood.

While Kevin and his mother, Eva, were driven by selfishness and loathing, Double Fault is about selfishness and love. The two main characters are a promising young woman tennis player, Willy Novinski, and her husband Eric Oberdorf, also a wannabe pro. Willy is a tennis obsessive, battling family disapproval and financial hardship to pursue her dream, while Eric is an easy-going, monied over-achiever, a skilled all-rounder who makes a success of everything he turns his hand to — including tennis.

When they meet, Willy is rising through the ranks; Eric nothing more than a gifted amateur. As their relationship progresses, the balance of power shifts. Eric’s game catches up with Willy’s and towards the middle of the book he overtakes her. From then on it’s all downhill . . . not just for Willy’s career, but for their marriage. Eric’s success is not just frustrating for Willy, but humiliating; the ease with which he dominates her at her own game mocks all those years of hard work and dedication.

The tennis metaphor is effective — if obvious. Willy’s choice of an individual rather than team sport makes her even less equipped for sharing, an essential part of marriage. Where there is glory, it must be all hers; where there is success, it must be hers too. But Shriver goes farther. Willy’s very femininity nearly causes her demise. There is a lengthy scene when Eric and Willy are training together. Eric is faster, better, stronger; Willy tries to compete but cannot.

She is apoplectic with rage; Eric is baffled. What did she expect? She is a woman, he is a man — of course he is going to win. Her frustration at being a member of the weaker sex is at the core of this doomed relationship.

Shriver conjures up some wonderful imagery: Eric zig- zagging across the tennis court “like the nimble electric stitch of a sewing machine”. The problem is that the arc of the narrative is just too predictable. Shriver cannot allow Willy to give in to her feminine side, to accept her physical limitations with regard to Eric and move on in their relationship. It’s the worst kind of blinkered, dunderheaded feminism. When Willy becomes pregnant, Shriver gives her an abortion, even though her tennis career is all but defunct.

Willy then rejects Eric in what I suppose is intended to be a defiant statement of independence but is actually an emotional cop-out. In Shriver’s world love is a weakness, altruism is for the foolish and being a mother pathetic. It’s not a place I wish to return to soon.

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