Customer Reviews

The Good Wife

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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

I probably shouldn't be writing this review. Since I finished this book a few days ago, I've recommended it to a few people, and when I told them what it was about, the response was the same: "it sounds awful--why would I read it?"

So, in the interest of encouraging others to read the book, I will try to refrain from description (the formal and informal reviews on this site will give you the gist of the story anyway) and try to explain why this book had such an impact on me, and why (after I stayed up late to finish it) my sleep was wracked with cold sweat nightmares.

All the really horrible events in the story occur offstage (the murder that precipitates the rest of the story, Tommy's various beatings) and the emotions that accompany them are painted in such subdued colors that we almost ache for the characters: Patty driving through the dreary countryside on her regular prison visits, Tommy returning to his cell, the interminable waits for news that's sometimes bad (denial of appeals) and sometimes a cause for celebration (family prison visits).

Although Patty decries her son's lack of affect, she somehow does not seem to realize that she herself evinces little emotion. We, the readers, must feel it for her. She goes through the motions of life without asking many questions, feeling much grief, wishing her lot were better, or getting depressed. The inability of her husband and son to establish a close relationship seems to make her unhappy, but she is similarly unable to make any deep connection with anyone. She's there for Tommy because it's who she is. She accepts her life in a way that most of us refuse to accept the limitations of our lives. Even though I didn't like her very much (I did like mom and Tommy) I didn't want her to just sit back and take it.

This is a story that throws its punches in negative space. Instead of turning the material into an overblown farce--the route most writers would take-- O'Nan does the opposite, working his magic in negative space. It's what he doesn't dare to discuss that gives this book its power.

One of the final lines of the book encapsulates the creepy calm that permeates the whole: after Tommy is finally home following 28 years of imprisonment, Patty "dares to believe the long pause that's kept them from their real life is finally behind them." At least for me, it was definitely not the sort of pause that refreshes.

One of the things I liked best about this book was O'Nan's "cut to the chase" approach to telling this story. He did not bog it down with a lot of unnecessary description. Instead he told you just enough to put you in the moment.

I felt a connection to Patty. Her struggles were very real to me. I could sympathize with her situation. She even annoyed me at times as well. I found her love for Tommy and her loyalty to her relationship with him touching and admirable. She is determined to make it through this because she genuinely loves this man. I like the fact that Tommy's prison life was not a central part of the story. If it had been, it would have totally detracted from what is essentially Patty's story.

O'Nan could have easily written this book another way (i.e. Patty meets and falls in love with another man, Casey becomes a troubled teen, etc.) I think a lot of lesser authors would have done just that. Thankfully, instead of going the "romance" route, he has written a wonderful story of love, determination and perseverance.

The Good Wife is another bittersweet (accent on bitter) tale of the inherent desperation of most people. Patty Dickerson's husband gets sent up for about 28 years for inadvertantly killing an old woman during a break-in of her house and O'Nan, in the stark spare writing style that he has mastered , chronicles Patty's journey from young and hopeful to middle-aged and resigned to her life's fate. Similiar in tone to his other books (especially Snow Angel), this story could make Bozo The Clown reach for the Prozac. The sadness is all over every page. O'Nan's understanding of the human psyche and his eye for understated detail give his narrative a powerful sense of realism. He uses real locations and obviously becomes a student of his subject. In this case its the New York Justice and penal system that treats all those connected with the offender as unworthy of any mercy. This is a tough work of fiction and brings to mind Henry David Thoreau's quote that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". This is a very worthwhile book to read for many reasons. Quality writing, increasing one's knowledge base, and a sense of fellowship with others who hurt. For while the particulars of the story may be fictional the author' aim is true when it comes to articulating the common human condition. Lock up the meds and put the trigger-locks on and then set aside some time for this touching piece of literature.

Told in a matter-of-fact, unsentimental way, The Good Wife tells the story of one family and 25 years of their lives as they work through the New York state penal system.

Tommy Dickerson does something stupid. He follows his friend Gary's lead and ends up involved in a murder for which he (and not Gary) pays the price--25 years in prison. At the time of his arrest, his wife Patty is pregnant. This is her story.

We see through her eyes the frustration of the poor as they try to work the system. Everything is against them, including, it seems, the public defenders. Then as the wife of a prisoner we see Patty at the mercy of the system again--as items are confiscated and her husband transferred from prison to prison (moving farther and farther away--to Dannemora and farther northwest, to eventually Bare Hill in Malone) as she is left to make due as a single mother.

Though they do not thrive, their marriage survives and their son makes it through college and ends up with a great job. It's at the end when Tommy is released and they are together again as a family (like they never were before) that we realize that all of these years have been not just a sentence for Tommy, but for all the rest of them as well.

Yes, Tommy was guilty of a crime. Even if the didn't commit the actual murder, he was there and could have stopped it. But the key to this story is not his guilt or innocence, rather it is about what happens to the family, the extended family, the friends of those imprisoned. What is the world like through their eyes. And you walk away from the book asking yourself, what would I do if my loved one was in jail? Would I be able to persevere as Patty does? Would I be such a good wife?

It's a fascinating, quick read and if you have not read O'Nan before, you should know that he is great. He has a no nonsense approach to telling a story that is utterly engaging and in this book, he has succeeded in doing just that.

Others have already described the plot and characters. I'll just mention my reactions: at first I wondered why I was even bothering with this book...I guess it hooked me initially with a young husband being involved in a murder and being sent off to prison. As I continued reading about the 28 or so yrs Patty and Tommy are separated by prison walls I found this story so poignant, so heartbreaking, so bare and real, that it all seemed believeable to me. I could feel the dreary cold of upstate NY and the depressing lives of those there. It's made me think deeply about prisons and who occupies them. Depressing? Yes. And yet. There was some glimmer of hope just always around the corner, just out of reach. There was something about Tommy, so sweet, naive, innocent (and I'm not referring to his part in the crime) that just made my heart ache. Patty was a hero in my book. She endured. I loved this book and I think it WILL stay with me for a long while.

The Good Wife is a simple book that tells a simple story about one family's struggle to survive in the face of daunting adversity. O'Nan does not embellish this story in any way, instead, chooses to relate the day-to-day struggle of a wife who spends most of her adult life waiting for the day her husband will once again be free.

What impressed me the most about this book was the way that the author captured the mundanity of life in small-town American. As the locale for this book, he chose the Southern Tier of New York, with the bulk of the story taking place in Owego. He paints a picture of this rather dull, unexciting community that allows the reader to feel what it is like to live there.

Patty, the "good wife," travels around the state, visiting her husband when she can. O'Nan describes the drive to Auburn and Clinton, NY with such detail, that the reader can "see" the summer camps and abandoned trailers. As a resident of upstate New York, I have traveled to many of these areas, and as I read the book, was right there in the scene with Patty. I have also visited Auburn Correctional as part of an outreach program, and was impressed by his vivid depiction of not only the prison itself, but the essence of the community.

O'Nan also offers a spot-on indictment of the New York State penal system. Prisoners are moved around and their families play a constant guessing game as to where they will go next, and how their lives will once again be upended. In one prison, there are overnight visits, in another there are none. Patty and her husband Tommy learn how to make do with the hand that they have been dealt, and emerge from it all intact.

I appreciate O'Nan's simplicity of style and ability to bring these characters to life. All in all, it was a nourishing read, and I highly recommend this book.

What if you woke one morning to a phone call from your spouse telling you he or she was in jail? What if the charge was murder? Would you stand by him/her even after they were convicted? How long would be reasonable? A year? Five years? What if you had a child?
These are the questions Patty Dickerson faces in "The Good Wife."

Stewart O'Nan offers us this story of the faithful, long suffering wife as she remains true to her ideal of the healthy family even as her husband spends over twenty years in prison. The strength in this novel lies in the superb characterization because as the reader asks what kind of person could live his life this way, O'Nan answers it with credibility. It may not be a road you or I would take, but as we grow to understand Patty Dickerson, the reader can at least appreciate her choices come from her background and her self-imposed limitations.

I highly recommend this novel. O'Nan has done it again.