Customer Reviews

Novel About My Wife

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There will be no spoilers in this review.

This is an odd, moody little book. The narrator is a man named Tom, who is an out-of-work screenwriter. He is married to an Australian woman named Ann, who in her very early 40's and now expecting their first child.

The story basically takes place the final few months of Ann's pregnancy although there are flashbacks (via a document that looks like a screenplay) about the time Ann and Tom were newlyweds in Fiji. And even before that...

From Tom, we know from the literally the first sentence that Ann is dead. We know that Tom is devastated, and through his narration we witness what led up to this. We are introduced to several characters, including fellow screenwriters and best friends and one woman who is a spiritualist. We also, through Tom's eyes, see Ann's odd behavior. She tells Tom she is being followed by a strange man, but it is only at the end whether we find out if this is true or not.

For me, the best part of this book is that it was disconcerting - in a good way. We are never entirely sure what is going on, and we are left wondering, like Tom, about his wife's well-being and sanity.

The problem for me was that the book was surprisingly not a page-turner. Usually I love books like this, but for some reason whenever I put this book down I wasn't that interested in picking it up again. That is until that last several pages, when I did enjoy it more. I also have to say that when I read the last page, I felt like I should read the whole book over again - not so much because I liked it as much as I felt like I didn't completely understand it. I'm not sure whether this was my fault because it took me so long to read the book, or a problem with the book itself.

I read about this book in the New York Times book reviews and it sounded spooky good.

Until I read it.

It's rather boring and disjointed and the author strangely delivers the climax near the beginning of the book where it does no good.

And the relationship didn't seem very honest. There were no sparks that even English/Australian couples have in their relationships. Their relationship was as bland as old oatmeal. Tom says he was captiavated by her the first time they met, but there's no passion between them, like one would expect a man captivated by his wife to feel.

The delusions of ants, the strange little sculptures, the phantom smells, the feeling of being followed by something dangerous, did no one else realize she was in late-stage syphillis-induced dementia?

I don't understand why Ann tried to hide her past from Tom. Yes, it was ugly, but these days I doubt if it would be that intimidating to men. Lots of women who have perfectly happy husbands had checkered pasts.

Tom seems to stand outside his own marriage, watching his wife lose her mind and doing nothing about it.

It just doesn't seem genuine and it certainly doesn't live up to its published reviews.

I relly wanted to like this book. I did find redeemimg features, but when I had finished I felt that I had missed the point. I went back over the chapters looking for clues.The characters were substantial and credible-even if they were figments of the imagination-and the settings were evocative...but something crucial was missing . That something-and I have yet to decide what it is-relegates a novel that could be four stars to one that is three.What nuance did I miss?

The first few pages of this novel give you a quick heartbeat that dry feeling under your tongue -- one of those things that makes you slow down because you realize you're experiencing something you'll look back at forever, and you're doing it for the first time.

It then gnaws and gnaws in a way I can't reveal, really. You just want Perkins to cut you god damn head off and get it over with, but she doesn't. This is why the book works.

It's a beautiful thing. And it's a two-day thing. Take the time.