He heads east across the country to the rural town of Salem in the Eastern Cape, where his daughter Lucy lives alone on a smallholding (a small farm that usually supports just one family – this word pops up a lot in the book), growing vegetables to sell at the Saturday market and running a kennel for dogs. Realizing that there's nothing for him in Cape Town, David opts for a change of scenery. After an investigation, David loses his job, his status, and, as the title implies, his dignity. It comes to an end when David finds out that Melanie has filed a complaint against David with the University. Things start to feel a little bit off with her almost immediately, though, and we start to get the vibe that their affair is pretty one-sided. David begins a slightly stalker-ish affair with Melanie, a student in his Romantics course, who awakens a passionate side of David that he didn't know existed anymore. In fact, David doesn't feel much passion for anything in his life, from his love life, to his career, to his hobbies – until Melanie steps in, that is. We learn that he gets his jollies out by visiting a prostitute named Soraya once a week, and that while he fulfills his desires with her, the sex is missing that "wow" factor. Disgrace begins in Cape Town, South Africa with our narrator telling us that by this point in his life, 52-year-old Professor David Lurie has "solved the problem of sex rather well" (1.1).
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