I’ve done some thinking about love triangles and politics. In fact, I’ve set a book in that world.

The Race takes place in Wisconsin. One of its recurring themes is the loneliness and solitude of strivers trapped in out-of-the-way places. Although they live – and thrive – in a flyover state, both the Governor and his wife have national aspirations. The Governor has a transatlantic affair. His wife goes to the national media to get her side of the story out. The center does not hold.

It’s a story that appeals to me, for the sex and intrigue but also the struggle to overcome  provincial origins. I was told once that living in the Midwest means learning to live within limits. These people did not learn.

What happened in France – recounted by Evgenia Peretz in a fascinating Vanity Fair article from December 2012 – is different. These were sophisticated people, living in a sophisticated city, living sophisticated lives.

And yet… things are recognizably the same.

Politics, like parenting and death, is a great leveler of differences. You could travel across time, continents, political systems and find the same basic elements: power, ambition, and human frailty. It seems that no matter what the particular landscape is, the political roads are all alike.

And they all lead to disaster.