Wife

Reviews / Votes

Poleaxed after finishing this. Charlotte Mendelson at her soul-searing best. Narcissistic monsters and suffocating families are quite the specialty of hers, but Wife is just unbearably brilliant -- Nigella Lawson, bestselling author of <i>Cook, Eat, Repeat</i> Wife is a gift to the reader in its gimlet-eyed and heartfelt observations, its irresistible sentences and its compassionate, sometimes surgical storytelling. Charlotte Mendelson tells the truth: slant, suspect, hidden, hard - and often hilarious -- Amy Bloom, bestselling author of <i>In Love</i> 'This is a love story,' Zoe tells the reader, and it is, profoundly so, in the end. But I'll remember it more as a thriller, for the way Mendelson manages to make what looks from the outside like a sad but unremarkable day - packing, Tube journeys - feel like sweaty offcuts from The Bourne Identity . . . God, you want Zoe to get away. Does she? Better read the book * The Sunday Times * A family saga of great insight, with another magnificently grotesque villain at its heart * The Observer * A clever, lacerating account of coercive control . . . a finely executed novel * Financial Times * A deeply engaging exploration of a troubling and passionate affair, motherhood and personal transformation . . . Mendelson's vibrant characters and richly detailed narrative provide a captivating look at the complexities of love and self-discovery. Compelling. * Glamour * Mendelson is an extraordinary writer . . . Her characters are whole and complex, her tone crisp and familiar, her prose uncluttered and full of delightfully bitchy moments * Evening Standard * Mendelson revels in the messiness of familial relationships, especially the ugly dramas that take place behind closed doors * TLS * A terrific panic attack of a novel, a domestic horror story . . . Mendelson's particular triumph is that this story is - perversely, incredibly - enjoyable, the kind of book to be wolfed down in a single excruciating sitting * i * The heart of this novel is how Mendelson portrays, with some comedy alongside the horror, the disintegration of a marriage. The claustrophobic bullying is so well done that I found it nauseating. What is truly radical about Wife, however, is its portrayal of a contemporary lesbian couple behaving as dysfunctionally as a straight one might * The Spectator *