The Wife delves into the tumultuous marriage of Joe Castleman, a renowned novelist, and his wife, Joan. For decades, they’ve harboured a significant secret. The story begins as Joe is about to receive the prestigious Helsinki literary prize, celebrating his illustrious career as one of America’s leading novelists. Joan, who has spent forty years suppressing her own literary ambitions to support Joe’s career, finally decides to take a stand.
This novel explores the sacrifices Joan has made in pursuit of the life she believed she wanted. Described as “a rollicking, perfectly pitched triumph” by the Los Angeles Times, The Wife offers a candid examination of the choices men and women face in marriage, work, and life.
Our readers weren’t overly impressed with this month’s choice of novel. We had some non-finishers, and the overarching feeling was that we couldn’t understand how it had been made into a film! Among the criticisms levelled at the books were that we didn’t warm to the characters and that the twist was predictable. Certainly we’d all guessed what the secret was well before the end of the book. We won’t spoil it here, but it was signposted very obviously by the author.
We understood that when Joan met Joe in the 1950s it was much harder for women to be independent and that becoming a writer in her own stead would have been more difficult for Joan. But we found it difficult to reason why she had stayed with him for so long. He was a cheater when they met and continued to be one throughout their marriage. There were successful female writers in the period, so it wasn’t impossible, but Joan seemed to have wanted to protect Joe’s brand as a writer.
Writing wise, we felt the book was too descriptive and that some of the chapters were too long, our readers felt it wasn’t an easy read, despite being a short book of just over 200 pages. It isn’t one we’d recommend, so much so that we spent the last part of our meeting sharing our current reads, which ranged far and wide including:
- Little Women series by Louisa M Alcott (reclaiming our childhood reads!)
- The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (we have a copy in stock at both sites if you fancy picking this one up)
- How to eat and still lose weight by Dr Andrew Jenkinson
- Romancing the Ordinary: A year of everyday indulgences by Sarah Ban Breathnach
- Panzer Army Africa by James Lucas
- The Beginning Woods by Malcolm McNeill
If you’d like to know more about The Wife, try these links.
Video from PBS of Meg Wolitzer answering questions about The Wife
Reading group guide from the publisher Simon & Schuster
Our next novel is The Day of the Roaring by Nina Bhadreshwar. A police procedural crime thriller, this one is set in Sheffield and has received great acclaim as a debut novel.
Pick up a book in the Library at GETEC and join in!
Find out more about our reading groups here
Take a look at the blog posts for our previous reads here.
