May We Borrow Your Husband?

Published 1967

All of the stories in this short collection adhere to the theme of love, sex, and their alternatives. These stories show a different side of Greene, a more self-reflective approach to relationships. The narrator in several of the stories is an aging English author, observing others in restaurants and at hotels, often in the south of France.

I’ll discuss a selection of the stories in this book.

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In the title story, “May We Borrow Your Husband,” an aging English author is staying at a hotel in Antibes where two gay English men are also staying when a young adonis walks into the hotel on honeymoon with his beautiful wife. The honeymoon is not going well. The wife is convinced that there’s some problem with herself. The aging English author assures her that the problem has nothing to do with her as he wines and dines her, occupying her time while the gay men take the husband out on an excursion into the Provençal countryside.

The aging author almost explains the situation to the young woman, and he might have added: “I’m thirty years older than you, but at least I have always preferred women and I’ve fallen in love with you and we could still have a few good years together before the time comes when you want to leave me for a younger man.” But his nerve fails him. And the adonis returns from the country in great spirits and is able to satisfy his wife that night.

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Several of these stories are quite funny. “Beauty” involves a perfect pomeranian with a dirty secret. In “A Shocking Accident,” we learn about the difficulties created for a young man after his father is killed by a falling pig. “Doctor Crombie” confuses boys at the school that he works by teaching them that masturbation and sex lead to cancer.

By the end of “Chagrin in Three Parts,” the aging author narrator realizes how dull most men are after hearing two women talk about their sex lives. How can the average man compete with a Lesbian?

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Greene has several times in his œuvre introduced homosexual characters, both men and women, who adhere to the received tropes. However, in the title story and in “Chagrin in Three Parts,” he portrays these characters without moral judgement, even as he uses them for effect. In fact, in the case of the title story, by leading him to marry for form’s sake, it’s the repression of his homosexuality on the part of the young husband that casts doubt on the happiness of he and his wife.