The Wife

by Meg Wolitzer

Book Overview

Now a major motion picture starring Glenn Close in her Golden Globe-winning role

One of bestselling author Meg Wolitzer's most beloved books--an "acerbically funny" (Entertainment Weekly) and "intelligent...portrait of deception" (The New York Times).

The Wife is the story of the long and stormy marriage between a world-famous novelist, Joe Castleman, and his wife Joan, and the secret they've kept...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743456661
• ISBN13: 9780743456661
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Not The Best

Unfortunately, I find this book boring. Don't need to hear about a bored housewife's marriage as she traverses the years with her somewhat famous husband.

Brilliant and dark!

This dark, sardonic novel is about a sixty-four-year-old woman's musings regarding her forty-something-year-old marriage to an accomplished novelist. Joan was a student at Smith College when she met and fell for Joe Castleman, back then her creative writing professor. She regales us with her times in college, her passion for literature and her many years supporting her husband's career. She has made up her mind that she must end the marriage during a flight to Finland, where Joe will collect a literary prize. Why has she decided to do this, you ask? During the course of the novel, you will discover the many things Joan left behind, and the many things she put up from Joe, including infidelity. What transpires is a dark, disarming novel with quite a detached, albeit palpable narrative from the sardonic anti-heroine. This novel has a very universal theme and it is not the most original of plots, but the novel contains quite an interesting and beautiful prose. The narrative is often detached and sardonic, as if Joan were talking about some other couple she has been observing from a distance, which makes things a bit confusing. At first, I asked myself, what is the purpose of this novel other than the internal monologues and musings from this Joan character? There is indeed a purpose and the story does lead you to a rather flooring conclusion. I hadn't expected the twist and felt as though my usual alertness for this sort of thing in books had flown the coop. The Wife is a very enthralling psychological thriller that will make you want to reread it just to see what clues the author had given you before she surprises you with such an original ending. I applaud Meg Wolitzer for creating such an insightful and creative twist to the universal topic of marriage. This book sort of reminds me of The Dangerous Husband by Jane Shapiro. The plots are different, but the darkness of the respective books and the marriage theme make them similar in my eyes. Anyway, I recommend The Wife book most highly.

Wise and weary: must-read for writers

This is an excellent novel, well-paced, sharply observed, witty, bitter, sad-- and also forgiving. It's true as other readers have noted that the subject is not 100% original. But in my view it's the best execution of a story about a literary wife-- and isn't it the execution that matters? This book is a joy to read; the prose is elegant and economic. Yes it is a portrait of the changing times, but there is a central "story question"-- what is the final thing prompting Joan to divorce her famous husband, Joe Castleman, after a lifetime of marriage? Is it just bitterness that she never pursued her own talent, anger over his cheating and taking her for granted, self-actualization? There is a twist in the book-- I didn't see it coming at all, but when it did, like the movie Sixth Sense, everything else fell into place. This is a must-read for anyone with literary aspirations or for anyone in a long-term relationship. I only knew Wolitzer as a comic writer before, and there are some comic scenes, but in this book she equals Gail Godwin and Philip Roth (who had to have been part of the inspiration for charismatic, crude Joe). This is as palatable as any beach novel but is so much more substantial!

Powerful

This is a powerful read. THe heroine of the story is Joan, anolder woman who has been trapped in a marriage that she doesn't really want to escape, but on a plane ride to celebrate her husband's greatest achievement, she decides she must leave him. The reader is taken into a flashback mode of the events of her relationship with Joe, from how they met, and what led them to get together. I found this novel powerful because of the way it explores Joan's feelings about herself, and about her life. True, the author does not give us a blueprint of the hows and whys of Joan's actions (or lack of), but I felt I got a good sense of what Joan is all about. She was a woman who got caught up in worship of a man, who didn't understand her place as a woman in the 50's and 60's. She willingly put up with all the garbage that Joe through at her, never listening to her own intuitions, and she never searched for her own happiness- everything she did was to make Joe love her, and to make Joe happy.I did not feel sympathy for Joan- she was not particularly likeable to me, yet I was compelled to read her story. I've seen many woman that are her age, and I see their bitterness, their distaste for the decisions that they made, the sacrifices, and that's where I think the author hit the nail of the head. She captured the lonliness and disillusion of the 60ish woamn, who stayed with the husband because that is what they thought was right.The prose is simple and straightforward. I thought some of the dialogue a bit pretentious, but it is a novel about authors, so I can understand the elevated language. I thought the chapters were a little long, and I think that certain passages lost their power by being in section that was just too lengthy.I recommend this novel to all woman, of all ages, because I think there is a little regret in everyone, and I think it is wonderfully captured in this novel.

a masterpiece!

The Wife is the best novel I have read in years. Witty, dry, searing, wise, the writing so fresh that a friend I recommended it to called me from the beach in Florida to read me a favorite line. I have read the book twice now, recommended it to countless friends and will be discussing it with my book group next week and can't wait. What I found so refreshing is Wolitzer's unflinching skewering of the literary world, those "men who own the world," the charming, voracious egos that devour women, soft cheese and single malt scotches in equal gulps. Though set mostly in an earlier day (the time in the book ranges from the 1950s to the present), I feel so much of the posturing and puffery is still true now. And the toll the marriage takes on the narrator's children rings painfully true -- never maudlin, just a matter-of-fact acknowledgement of how lies can worm their way through the most innocent hearts. As a fellow writer, reading The Wife felt a bit like a mischievous look at the writhing underbelly of a large and heavy rock -- the male literary tradition. A brave and brilliant book. And, for what it's worth, I was surprised by the ending.