Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
Novel About My Wife
A psychological novel that unspools the relationship of a London couple through the husband’s narration. Pregnancy, money trouble, and an unsettling atmosphere deepen both affection and suspicion.
Work Information
A marriage novel in which affection and suspicion deepen at the same pace.
As a new house, a first child, and financial pressure pile up, the invisible cracks between husband and wife gradually come into view. Suspicion and obsession build inside a quiet, closely observed narration.
Review Summaries
-
Readers often value the sharp character observation and the slowly mounting unease. At the same time, some find the novel’s heavy, bleak atmosphere demanding.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
- Published
- 2008-08-05
- Pages
- 271 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.01 x 2.06 x 19.84 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781596911666
- ISBN-10
- 1596911662
- Category
- 洋書/Mystery & Thrillers/Thrillers/Psychological & Suspense
Feeling as if his life is coming together when he moves into his first house with his pregnant wife Ann, Tom becomes increasingly disturbed when Ann's nesting activities deteriorate into increasingly unstable behaviors. By the author of Not Her Real Name. 15,000 first printing.
Emily Perkins is the author of Not Her Real Name , a collection of short stories that won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the John Lewellyn Rhys Prize, and the novels Leave Before You Go and The New Girl . She lives in New Zealand.
Reviews
-
Another excellent read from one of New Zealand's finest writers. Highly recommended!
-
This is a very engaging book and the characters are beautifully drawn. I particularly appreciate that Ms. Perkins has written the whole thing from a male perspective. Had the ending neatly tied up all unanswered questions, I would have given it five stars. If you don't mind a bit of mystery remaining, you'll likely find it entirely satisfying.
-
Tedious
-
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 loved this book, the way the plot was revealed, the characters were very relatable, and the story very unpredictable and engaging. However, the ending did not have the pathos that I expected it to. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a well written, relatively short, pithy novel with a real human element.