by Elizabeth Strout
|
by Meg Wolitzer
|
by Meg Wolitzer
|
by Hester Browne
|
by David Eagleman
|
See buying choices for this item to see if it's one of the millions that are eligible for Amazon Prime.
Wife: A Novel
and over 300,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device.
Learn more
|
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Wolitzer (Sleepwalking) opens her latest tale in the first-class cabin of an airplane. Joan, a still-striking 64-year-old woman, observes her husband, the "short, wound-up, slack-bellied" famous novelist Joe Castleman, as he lolls in his seat and accepts the treats and attention offered him by the flight attendants. The couple are on their way to Finland, where Joe will receive the fictional Helsinki Prize, not quite as prestigious as the Nobel, but worth a small fortune-the crown jewel in a spectacular career. Yet as the once blonde Smith College co-ed looks over at the once handsome creative writing teacher who seduced her, she realizes that she must end this marriage. The reader is prepared for a tale of witty disillusionment. Here is Joan on the literary fame game: "You might even envy us-him for all the power vacuum-packed within his bulky, shopworn body, and me for my twenty-four-hour-access to it, as though a famous and brilliant writer-husband is a convenience store for his wife, a place she can dip into anytime for a Big Gulp of astonishing intellect and wit and excitement." As the narrative flows from the glamorous present back to the past, tracing the bohemian Greenwich Village beginnings of the couple's relationship and Joe's skyrocketing success and compulsive philandering, an almost subliminal psychological horror tale begins to unfold. Wolitzer delicately chips away at this seemingly confident and detached narrator and her swaggering "genius" husband, inserting a sly clue here and there, until the extent of Joan's sacrifice is made clear. There is no cheap, gratifying Hollywood ending to make it all better. Instead, Wolitzer's crisp pacing and dry wit carry us headlong into a devastating message about the price of love and fame. If it's a story we've heard before, the tale is as resonant as ever in Wolitzer's hands.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From The New Yorker
On the way to a big literary-award ceremony, the wife of a famous New York Jewish novelist—sick of his philandering, his self-importance, and his limited talent—decides on divorce. Her stingingly comic story of their marriage shows why. They met in 1956, when she was his writing student at Smith and he was the author of one very bad published story. Only after running off with his talented and self-effacing pupil does he burst into literary stardom. Although they have three (variously unhappy) children, he has always been the real child in the family, dragging her along to the fêtes at which he is flattered and flirted with while she drinks her jealousy away. Wolitzer never really develops her characters and savvy readers will guess her surprise ending quite early on, but she has great fun satirizing an all too recognizable stratum of literary life.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
Wolitzer (Sleepwalking) opens her latest tale in the first-class cabin of an airplane. Joan, a still-striking 64-year-old woman, observes her husband, the "short, wound-up, slack-bellied" famous novelist Joe Castleman, as he lolls in his seat and accepts the treats and attention offered him by the flight attendants. The couple are on their way to Finland, where Joe will receive the fictional Helsinki Prize, not quite as prestigious as the Nobel, but worth a small fortune-the crown jewel in a spectacular career. Yet as the once blonde Smith College co-ed looks over at the once handsome creative writing teacher who seduced her, she realizes that she must end this marriage. The reader is prepared for a tale of witty disillusionment. Here is Joan on the literary fame game: "You might even envy us-him for all the power vacuum-packed within his bulky, shopworn body, and me for my twenty-four-hour-access to it, as though a famous and brilliant writer-husband is a convenience store for his wife, a place she can dip into anytime for a Big Gulp of astonishing intellect and wit and excitement." As the narrative flows from the glamorous present back to the past, tracing the bohemian Greenwich Village beginnings of the couple's relationship and Joe's skyrocketing success and compulsive philandering, an almost subliminal psychological horror tale begins to unfold. Wolitzer delicately chips away at this seemingly confident and detached narrator and her swaggering "genius" husband, inserting a sly clue here and there, until the extent of Joan's sacrifice is made clear. There is no cheap, gratifying Hollywood ending to make it all better. Instead, Wolitzer's crisp pacing and dry wit carry us headlong into a devastating message about the price of love and fame. If it's a story we've heard before, the tale is as resonant as ever in Wolitzer's hands.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From The New Yorker
On the way to a big literary-award ceremony, the wife of a famous New York Jewish novelist—sick of his philandering, his self-importance, and his limited talent—decides on divorce. Her stingingly comic story of their marriage shows why. They met in 1956, when she was his writing student at Smith and he was the author of one very bad published story. Only after running off with his talented and self-effacing pupil does he burst into literary stardom. Although they have three (variously unhappy) children, he has always been the real child in the family, dragging her along to the fêtes at which he is flattered and flirted with while she drinks her jealousy away. Wolitzer never really develops her characters and savvy readers will guess her surprise ending quite early on, but she has great fun satirizing an all too recognizable stratum of literary life.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
THE MOMENT I decided to leave him, the moment I thought, enough, we were thirty-five thousand feet above the ocean, hurtling forward but giving the illusion of stillness and tranquility. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
slush pile Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Nathaniel Bone, Elaine Mozell, Merry Cheslin, Helsinki Prize, Joe Castleman, Lev Bresner, Professor Castleman, Miss Ames, Butternut Peak, Carol Castleman, Joseph Castleman, Opera House, Finnish Academy, Northrop House, Waverly Arms, Korean War, Bob Lovejoy, Dusty Berkowitz, Hal Wellman, Harry Jacklin, James Joyce, Professor Tanaka, Seelye Hall, Simone Weil New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
THE MOMENT I decided to leave him, the moment I thought, enough, we were thirty-five thousand feet above the ocean, hurtling forward but giving the illusion of stillness and tranquility. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
slush pile Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Nathaniel Bone, Elaine Mozell, Merry Cheslin, Helsinki Prize, Joe Castleman, Lev Bresner, Professor Castleman, Miss Ames, Butternut Peak, Carol Castleman, Joseph Castleman, Opera House, Finnish Academy, Northrop House, Waverly Arms, Korean War, Bob Lovejoy, Dusty Berkowitz, Hal Wellman, Harry Jacklin, James Joyce, Professor Tanaka, Seelye Hall, Simone Weil New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 7
books:
See all 7 books this book cites
- Surrender, Dorothy: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- This Is Your Life: Tie-In Edition by Meg Wolitzer in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition by Norman Mailer on page 125
- Friends For Life by Meg Wolitzer in Front Matter
- Hidden Pictures by Meg Wolitzer in Front Matter
See all 7 books this book cites
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
76% buy the item featured on this page: The Wife: A Novel |
 |
11% buy The Ten-Year Nap $9.98 |
 |
5% buy Olive Kitteridge: Fiction $7.70 |
 |
4% buy The Position: A Novel |
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
|
This product's forum
(0 discussions)
Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Active discussions in related forums
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Information from the Amapedia Community
Beta (What's this?)Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
Look for Similar Items by Category
Don't Eat the Biscuits |
Best Books of 2008 |
Down to the Nuts and Bolts |
||||||||
|
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
You have no recently viewed items or searches.
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session. |
Continue shopping: Top Sellers
| ||||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
