The Dangerous Husband

by Jane Shapiro

Book Overview

"In The Dangerous Husband, they meet and almost immediately fall in love. Like everyone, they have been alone. He is perfect for her - charming and sexy and awkward and sweet. They are forty; it is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316782653
• ISBN13: 9780316782654
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Tawdry Minefield

I thought this was a very fine book indeed. Shapiro has an acid wit and keen eye for detail. In the beginning of this novel we encounter a happily engaged couple caught up in a whirlwind romance. But as soon as the wedding is over, little things start to bug the wife about her bumbling husband. Teeny things, a bit here, a nudge there, until she's ready to -- well, that would spoil the ending. I love novels that are both hilarious and true, especially when the tawdry mindfield of romance is the setting. Earlier this year, a great novel called Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf was my hilarious guide into the minefield, and just when I thought I knew the way out, The Dangerous Husband comes along to lead me deeper in.

Absolutely wonderful!

The very best book I've read in the past year. A wise and witty parable of what we all go through when we marry - the irritations, the compromises, the misunderstandings, the forgivenesses. I loved it from the very first paragraph - what a terrific writer Shapiro is!

A Witty and Mordant Triumph

The Dangerous Husband is one of the funniest books I've read in the last two weeks. Jane Shapiro has written an over-the-top look at one strange contemporary marriage in which we all might recognize a bit of ourselves. If you like your humor black with no sugar...read this book.

A dark and elegant comedy about marriage

I've seen The Dangerous Husband compared to other novels, but in reality, there is no other novel quite like this this one, nor any writer who does quite what Shapiro does. This book isn't for readers of romance novels or fat, didactic sagas. It's spare and urban and darkly funny. And the prose is breathtaking -- witty, sad, incisive. What a great book.

A brilliant second novel

Jane Shapiro demonstrates once again the crackling wit and deft feel for dialogue that distinguished her first novel, After Moondog. Here, she turns her ample skills to a tale at once hair-raising and hilarious, combining true comedy with a queasy-making story of a marriage on its way down. Shapiro at her best reminds one of none other than Vladimir Nabokov. The Dangerous Husband stands with another treacherous treat, John Lanchester's Debt to Pleasure, as first among a small group of inheritors of Nabokov's sly brand of humor. The infectious zaniness of The Dangerous Husband, however, is all Shapiro's own.