Cicadas is an erotic coming-of-age story about reinvention, set in a small coastal town in Southern California. Anouk, a twenty-something student from rural France, joins Michael and Marina, a wealthy American couple in an open marriage, at their dream-like home flanking the sea for the summer. As the initial thrill of Anouk and Michael’s affair begins to fade, she navigates the couple’s swinging moods, dark secrets, and manipulative efforts to control her.
Inspired by Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus and the frank immediacy of Annie Ernaux’s personal essays, Cicadas is at once suspenseful, ruminative, and lucid, full of pathos and glittering illuminations.