She was fortunate in her first lover in so far as he was kind, gentle, and experienced; she was unfortunate in that soon he began to love her and, after that, could not leave her alone. As for Annabel, she was like a child who reconstructs the world according to its whims and so she chose to populate her home with imaginary animals because she preferred them to the drab fauna of reality. She quickly interpreted him into her mythology but if, at first, he was a herbivorous lion, later he became a unicorn devouring her raw meat and she never saw him the same twice, nor did these pictures have any continuity except for the constant romanticism of the imagery. She had no control over them, once they existed. And, as she drew him, so she saw him; he existed for her only intermittently.
An excerpt from Love by Angela Carter (1971).
Love follows the destructive love triangle between a psychologically unstable girl, her charming husband, and her volatile brother-in-law. Effectively exploring themes of infidelity, self-loathing, suicide, and emotional disconnection, the novel depicts three characters so alienated from society and reality, that they depend solely on each other. This unhealthy fixation slowly eats away at their individual relationships and themselves, until eventually culminating in despair and tragedy.