In Dubus's work, sexual love is entirely instrumental. Men and women are alive to themselves and to one another only in the mythic way. They provoke in themselves the fantasy that romantic love will bring one to safe haven. They are tremendously influenced by an idea of "men" and an idea of "women" that Ernest Hemingway would have understood and approved of, but that many people today find alarming, if not downright silly. The reader can see early on that the marriage in Adultery will come to disaster. Without genuine connection -- that is, connection of the mind or spirit -- sexual feeling quickly wears itself out. Such love is bound to come a cropper. Yet neither Dubus nor his characters see what the reader sees. In many of his stories, the characters are middle-aged and have been through these affairs many times over. Yet they remain devoted to the fantasy. They resist taking in their own experience. Theirs is the distress of people unable to arrive at wisdom.