Written on the Body is a lover's confession, lover's ode to the body and soul of the loved one. The novel begins with the narrator addressing the lover and talking about the issues of love, loss and sadness.
The first part could be seen as a recollection of the narrator's previous lovers, a lot of which were married women, and love experiences compared to meeting Louise. The narrator questions adultery and marriage, clichés of marital happiness, of settling down and commitment. The ever-growing obsession with Louise begins-the narrator is at first reluctant because of her marriage but, given that Louise is showing the same interest, gives into passion.
With this new relationship come troubles in the form of fear of commitment and hurting the current partner Jacqueline. Jacqueline is described as a stable character, so the irony of the vile manner she handles the narrator's cheating is thus even more ironic.
The narrator and Louise are enjoying their blissful passion but, of course, there has to be trouble in paradise. Elgin reveals that Louise has cancer and the narrator is forced to make a decision, a decision that isn't even his/hers to make. At the end, the decision proves to be wrong, and the narrator begins to realize that it may have been more selfish instead of heroic.
Nevertheless, the cliché second chance at love is given at the end, but the narrator is still unsure whether this is the happy ending, unsure what comes after. They are "let loose in open fields", let loose because of the unpredictability of life, it is a satisfying ending to the novel, but it doesn't mean the end of their story.
