The Consul's Wife (Hardcover)

by W. T. Tyler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Tyler, a former diplomat, has crafted a tale that is part political novel, part love story. Hugh Mathews, foreign service officer and self-described "diplomatic vagabond," is posted to the Congo in the early 1970s. There, he daily witnesses the disjunction between official pronouncements and conditions on the ground, his cynicism held in check only by an "intellectual relationship" with Blakey Ogden, the unhappy wife of the embassy consul. After their relationship deepens, Blakey leaves the Congo, eventually divorcing and beginning a new life. Years later, Hugh returns to Washington and again encounters Blakey. While the love story is the novel's heart, its soul lies in its sardonic description of American foreign policy and of diplomatic life in geopolitical backwaters. For popular collections.?Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Powerfully despairing, Graham Greenelike tale of romance and alienation in the blasted African bush, from our foremost chronicler of Washington's faceless bureaucracy and the lives it so blithely consumes (Last Train from Berlin, 1994, etc.). As the Vietnam War makes a mess of US foreign policy in Southeast Asia, footloose American foreign-service careerist Hugh Mathews finds himself transferred from Eden-like, pre-invasion Lebanon to a grim, gloomy diplomatic compound in the former Belgian Congo. A bachelor with little patience for political frippery (he likens diplomacy to ``an old whore trying to remember when she'd been a virgin''), he's resigned to terminal futility--until he falls for Blakely Ogden, the bronzed, blond wife of the embassy's insipid consul, Jeffrey. Childless and stifled by a loveless marriage, Blakely confides her fascination with tribal masks and other artifacts of African culture. Hoping to experience something more than the sublime ennui of diplomatic protocol, and perhaps discover some interesting antiques for his friend, Mathews begins to run pointless errands in the blighted, inhospitable countryside with fellow loner Ken McAuliffe, a burned-out idealist who ``like most incorrigibly honest people, had no sense of the mystery in himself.'' After a passionate affair with Mathews, Blakely flees her lover and her husband, leaving no forwarding address. Then McAuliffe quits the service and is blown to bits by a land mine while helping refugees escape, and Mathews finds himself banished for his misdemeanors- -among them the discovery that his local drinking buddies are outlaw revolutionaries. He ends up back in Washington with a dull desk job. Overwhelmed by a life of so much futility, Mathews is suddenly reborn when he stumbles on Blakely again. Together, the two finally experience what passes for contentment in the rustic Virginia woods. Thick with bilious resentment and impotent rage: a trenchant, eloquently crafted drama of lost souls who find salvation where they least expect it. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company; 1st edition (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805044256
• ISBN-13: 978-0805044256
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,420,575 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, May 4, 2000

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This portrait of a young, single US foreign service officer serving in pre civil-war Lebanon, the Congo, and then just pre-civil war Sudan is dead on in capturing a certain type. Tyler served in the foreign service himself (a milieu I grew up in), and his description of the diplomatic life is perhaps the best I've read. Most of the book is spent in the Congo, and Tyler does an excellent job showing how Hugh Mathews is totally affected by his travels through the back country. He is outsider to the stuffy suited men who mostly stay in within the safe confines of embassy life. His life is given meaning through a frenetic affair with the wife of the embassy's consul. When she leaves, he drifts through a few empty years in Sudan and Washington, going through the motions. He gains a second chance at the end, with plausibly subdued results. It all rings very very true and is presented in well-crafted prose.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intoxicating - An Africa that never leaves us, February 2, 1999

By A Customer

Tyler obviously spent time as a Foreign Service Officer. Having spent several years in Africa in the FS as well, this book brought back many memories and yearnings to return. Once Africa gets under your skin, there is an indescibable yearning to return. I was particularly captured in the first two pages of the book with his description of the storm and the magic. I could almost hear the Wood Dove in the background and the crack of lightening against the granite kopjes. From an old AF hand, an excellent read, written by someone who really experienced it and understood.