The Wives of Bath

By Susan Swan

Book Overview

InThe Wives of Bath, Susan Swan penetrates the world of a girls' boarding school and tells a story - at once shocking and wickedly funny - that encompasses rebellion and murder, and stunningly evokes the pain, confusion, and humour of female adolescence and sexual coming-of-age. It is 1963.??Mary Bradford (a.k.a. Mouse) is thirteen when she is shipped off to Bath Ladies College.??Mouse, motherless, a hunchback, enters the school feeling very much on its margins, determined never to fit in with the "normal" girls, never to succumb to the expectations of the elder role models: the spinster teachers, the elegant mothers of her schoolmates.??She chooses her allies carefully: her hump, whom she calls Alice, and john F. Kennedy, to whom she writes long letters asking and giving advice. But the school itself is stranger than Mouse ever could have imagined.??A secret underworld of tunnels beneath the buildings, stolen love letters, King Kong worship, and ghostlike apparitions - a world where young girls sometimes refuse to be simply "good little girls" - all lead Mouse into experiences, both terrifying and exciting, of an alternate reality for her sex.??What begins as experimentation spins out of control, ending in a death that only Mouse can fully comprehend. Susan Swan has created in Mouse Bradford - wise, witty and vulnerable - an unforgettable heroine.??The Wives of Bathis a novel that both moves the heart an astonishes the imagination.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679419195
• ISBN13: 9780679419198
• Release Date: August 1993
• Publisher: Knopf
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Stylish

I came to reading the Wives of Bath having seen and rather enjoyed the Leah Pool film based on it, Lost & Delirious. The two are very different incidentally. This book is about gender, more than anything else in my opinion. Paulie has some sort of objection to, not so much her place in society as a woman, but to what can be simply described as 'girlieness'. Her bizarre obsession with King Kong is contrasted with Mouse's more common infatuation with President Kennedy. All in all, I'd say this novel is surreal, well written and stylish. It reminded me somewhat of the writings of Jeanette Winterson or possibly even the late great Doug Adams - not so much in humor, but in the absent-minded and beautifully composed suspension of reality for the sake of the story. It did resonate with me for a while when i finished it.

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!

"The Wives of Bath" is one of the best books I have read in recent years. The story of is rge type that you can get caught up in and not put the book down. I read this book in one night and thought that it was absoltely amazing!I really liked how, with Polly, you were never really sure about her gender and how the story was seen through Mouse's eyes. All in all i feel that this book is one of the best written pieces of literature with a gay theme ever.