Foreword
For as long as western man has submitted his naturally polygamous nature to the constricting confines of an institution of marriage that is strictly monogamous, he has found himself alternately plagued, tempted, and titillated by the inevitably co-existent art of infidelity. Some of our greatest tragedies have sprung from the passions which this art arouses in the hearts of men and women, passions which have led to violence, murder, and sometimes even full scale war. Every school child is familiar with the infidelity of Helen of Troy, which directly caused the Trojan War in ancient times. Every student of literature knows the extremes of jealousy to which Othello was driven merely by suspecting that his innocent wife was guilty of loving another man. And the untold individuals who have had their lives touched by this powerful force surround us every day, in our offices and on our streets.
It is about this last category of people, the unknown, faceless masses which fill the casualty lists of that indiscriminate enemy, infidelity, that Mr. Roberts chooses to write the work you now hold in your hands. It is an ambitious, daring attempt, and succeeds brilliantly in carrying it off, in creating some of the most memorable characters that we, The Publishers, have ever been privileged to offer to you.
Who are Ron and Sharon Fleming? What great and lasting importance do they carry for the future of the world? What influential place will they occupy in the annals of history? None, you might say, and you would be right. But you would be right only insofar as these two people are unknown and insignificant individuals. As individuals they will occupy a place in history no greater or less than either you or I will occupy, and will pass unnoticed in the course of the millennia to come.
But it is not as individuals that we must consider them!
On the contrary, it is precisely as representative members of that great majority of people who are born and die without having left their mark on life that the Flemings achieve the true, and vitally relevant literary importance that they do. Mr. Roberts has given us an artfully subtle statement on the contemporary lot of the common man, a fitting complement to the growing modern preoccupation, not with men of great stature, but with the small cogs which make up the machine of our contemporary society.
The Flemings' antagonists in this fascinating study, Dick and Myra Green, provide unique wrinkles in the intricately and expertly woven fabric of The Reluctant Swappers' plot. Theirs is
Archive Note: At this point, the FOREWORD in the hardcopy pocketbook cut off, a blank page was inserted, and Chapter One began. Note also the Foreword refers to "The Reluctant Swappers" (Catalog identification: TNS-526) which has the same text, word for word, as this pocketbook.