The Good Wife: A Novel [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Stewart O'Nan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2005

On a clear winter night in upstate New York, two young men break in to a house. Within minutes, an old woman is dead and the house is in flames. Across the country, Patty Dickerson's phone rings. It's her husband. He wants her to know that he and his friend have gotten themselves into a little trouble. So Patty's old life ends and a strange new one begins. For the next twenty-eight years, she must live with the absence caused by her husband's incarceration, attempt to raise her son, and brave the scorn of her community. As unflinching as it is heartrending, The Good Wife confirms O'Nan's place as one of our country's most wide-ranging and empathetic masters.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stewart O'Nan's ninth novel, The Good Wife, begins with that classic harbinger of bad news: A phone call in the middle of the night. Small-town housewife Patty Dickerson, pregnant with her first child, has been waiting in bed for her husband Tommy to get home. When the call comes, it's from jail. Tommy has been arrested for murder after a robbery gone awry. He doesn't make it home for 28 years.

With his usual practicality, O'Nan kills the hope off quickly in The Good Wife. This isn/t a novel of beating the odds but of enduring them. We follow Patty through her husband's long incarceration as she moves in with family, gets a series of low-paying jobs, remains faithful to Tommy, and raises their son Casey alone. These aren't unique circumstances--although they rarely form the stuff of fiction--and these aren't unique, unforgettable characters. Patty Dickerson could be anyone, and that's the point. This is a story of ordinary lives and small graces. O'Nan's refusal to dress things up (or down) is part of the charm of this clear-sighted, uncompromising novel. --Regina Marler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Patty Dickerson, the resilient heroine of O'Nan's forceful, oddly moving ninth novel, is pregnant with her first child and waiting for her husband, Tommy, on a snowy night in the mid-1970s, when the phone rings. It's Tommy, and he's in jail after a robbery. He's been a thief for some time, a fact Patty has refused to acknowledge. Unfortunately, Tommy's latest escapade involves arson and death. Convicted of murder in the second degree, he receives a sentence of 25 years to life. The main story is Patty's, told in the present tense in quietly lyrical and observant prose: the struggle to make ends meet in an economically depressed upstate New York community, the shame of her son's father being in prison, the frustrating and humiliating treatment the penal system inflicts on prisoners and family alike. In a sense, Patty's life is on semipermanent hold over the 28 years Tommy spends in a correctional facility, but of course it isn't really: her son grows up, she visits her husband as often as she can, she works, mostly at dead-end jobs, and eventually she creates a career for herself. In other words, she makes a life that's both with and without her love. O'Nan (The Night Country) has completely captured Patty Dickerson and her dogged determination to endure in this sad but strangely hopeful story.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• ISBN-10: 0374281394
• ASIN: B000H305RS
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,798,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stewart O'Nan's award-winning fiction includes Snow Angels, A Prayer for the Dying, Last Night at the Lobster, and Emily, Alone. Granta named him one of America's Best Young Novelists. He lives in Pittsburgh.

www.stewart-onan.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful novel of spare prose, July 18, 2005

By 

Monica J. Kern (Lexington, KY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Good Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

This haunting novel describes in spare prose the long span of time that passes between the commission of a crime by Patty's husband, Tommy, and his release from prison many years later. Throughout it, Patty is the "good wife" indeed, nearly unwavering in her support for Tommy in the face of truly difficult circumstances. The graceful writing and moral dilemmas in this novel will stay with you long after finishing it.

O'Nan provides a totally convincing portrayal of a segment of society--the spouses, usually wives, of convicts--that goes almost completely ignored and neglected. This book is searing reminder that crimes harm not only the victims of the crime, who naturally deserve the bulk of our sympathy, but also the criminal's loved ones. Tommy's apparent lack of recognition of, and remorse for, the harm he has done to his wife and the child he was not around to raise is one of the most disturbing aspects of the novel. Patty WAS a good wife, and she deserved more gratitude from Tommy than she received.

What makes this novel deserving of 5 stars is not merely its story but the writing itself. In beautiful, spare prose O'Nan writes simply of the day to day complications of trying to get by as a single mother whose only hope for the future is at the far end of a 25-year sentence. Parts of Patty's life are described in detail, but in other parts of the book, entire years go by summarized in a phrase or a sentence. The tragedy of Patty's life is that entire years COULD be summarized in a sentence, and through his prose O'Nan communicates vividly the bleakness of a life placed far too long on hold.

Should Patty have stuck by Tommy? That's a hard question. You have to admire her perseverance and willingness to stand by her marriage vows and her love her for husband, although the subplot involving her attraction for another man suggests that, once again, Patty let her life be determined by the actions (or inactions) of others. Given slightly different chance encounters, her story very easily could have ended differently. In a way, I see her story not being one of loyalty but rather passivity...to Tommy, to a penal system that transferred her husband to a facility a day's drive away, to a fate that treated her badly. Patty may have been a good wife, but in the final analysis, the only person that benefited was Tommy. And you finish the novel feeling utterly sad about all the wasted lives involved.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What is the price of love?, August 24, 2005

By 

Allyson Decker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Good Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

And how much are you willing to pay? That is the question posed to Patty Dickerson, pregnant wife of Tommy. One night, Tommy and his friend are caught breaking into a home. Something goes horribly wrong, a woman ends up dead, and Patty's life starts in a downward spiral. Tommy is sentenced to prison, Patty has her baby and must find a way to survive not only financially but emotionally as well.

Things are bleak - she cant hold a job, money is non existent and Tommy is moved from prison to prison, making visitation tough.

I didn't feel that the novel was full of cliffhangers or suspense but I did want to continue reading till the end to see what would happen to Patty and Tommy. Would she stay or would she go? Would he ever get out of prison? I felt compelled to read till the end to find out although by the time I got there, some of the interest was gone.

The book jacket states that "The Good Wife illuminates a marriage and family tested to the limits of endurance." Thats for sure.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars WHOEVER SAID THAT LIFE WAS FAIR?, April 21, 2005

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Good Wife (Audio CD)

Awaiting the birth of a first child ought to be a period of happy anticipation shared by husband and wife. And then, the actual birth should be a celebration with the new parents buoyed by the good wishes of family and friends. None of this proved true for Patty Dickerson, although she deserved it for she was not only a good wife but a good woman. However, as we're often reminded, bad things do happen to good people.

Stewart O'Nan has a gift for straight forward storytelling (The Night Country, Snow Angels). He doesn't need window dressing to create a novel that soon has the reader/listener totally involved with characters that remain with us long after the tale ends. "The Good Wife" is a prime example of the power of O'Nan's pen.

Patty is awakened in the dark of night with a phone call from her husband, Tommy. What he describes as some trouble is much more than that.- he's been involved in a series of robberies and now he has been arrested for murder. What follows is the suspense of a trial and then his incarceration.

There are, of course, visits to jail, but Patty is basically left to her own resources to earn a living and raise their son, Casey. This is not a happy story, simply an authentic one extremely well told.

Voice performer Laural Merlington does full justice to Patty who is both protagonist and narrator. At times stricken, at other times brave, always enduring, Merlington carries listeners through over a quarter of a century in Patty's life.

- Gail Cooke