Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Wife
Meg Wolitzer
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Wife
Meg Wolitzer
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Wife, by Meg Wolitzer, is told by the wife, Joan, about her marriage to Joseph Castleman. Joe has recently won a valuable prize for his novels. He and Joan are on their way to Helsinski to receive it. The wife begins her story when Joseph was her literature professor in college. He makes love to her in his office and she wants to be with him always. In Helsinki, they are shown into the Presidential suite, and in the morning they are awakened by a choir of voices serenading them.
David, their son, is slightly psychotic, but with meds can hold a job at a law firm. Joe loves being adored by young, pretty women. It’s his weakness, he says. Joan tells us about their early days of marriage, and how Joe left his wife, Carol, and baby girl, Fanny. Because of his affair with Joan, he is dismissed from his position at Smith College. He and Joan go to a seedy hotel in New York City where she gets a job at a publishing house as an assistant editor. At parties with Joe’s buddies, Joan is teased as a female writer with guts. Joe says he’s going to write a novel. Joan is bored in their apartment and visits her mother nearby. Her mother tells her she shouldn’t have married a Jew and says Joe has hypnotized her with sex. That’s all he wants. She swears he’s going to be a successful writer and she resolves that he will be. Joan and Joe marry, have children, hire a live-in babysitter with whom Joe has sex. Women flock to him. He enjoys it. Joan watches and says nothing. The children notice it too. Joe tells Joan many stories of his life, and embellishes them as she types them.
They traveled everywhere, Joe gave readings, won awards. Joan watched like the dutiful wife. At one time, an older woman had told Joan she’d never be as successful a writer as she wanted to be. Men were in charge of everything including publishing and being successful. Joan believed her and was influenced by her. When she and Joe went to Vietnam, Joan watched a female journalist mix with the male writers and wished she could do the same. On the plane to Helsinki, she decides to leave him. Why did she decide at this time? Should we be proud of her or surprised that she waited so long to do this? Do female writers have more or less power today than in Jane Austen’s day? How many successful female writers from the 1920s or '30s can you think of?
Find this fascinating story in the fiction room under Wolitzer’s name at your Mendocino Community Library.
David, their son, is slightly psychotic, but with meds can hold a job at a law firm. Joe loves being adored by young, pretty women. It’s his weakness, he says. Joan tells us about their early days of marriage, and how Joe left his wife, Carol, and baby girl, Fanny. Because of his affair with Joan, he is dismissed from his position at Smith College. He and Joan go to a seedy hotel in New York City where she gets a job at a publishing house as an assistant editor. At parties with Joe’s buddies, Joan is teased as a female writer with guts. Joe says he’s going to write a novel. Joan is bored in their apartment and visits her mother nearby. Her mother tells her she shouldn’t have married a Jew and says Joe has hypnotized her with sex. That’s all he wants. She swears he’s going to be a successful writer and she resolves that he will be. Joan and Joe marry, have children, hire a live-in babysitter with whom Joe has sex. Women flock to him. He enjoys it. Joan watches and says nothing. The children notice it too. Joe tells Joan many stories of his life, and embellishes them as she types them.
They traveled everywhere, Joe gave readings, won awards. Joan watched like the dutiful wife. At one time, an older woman had told Joan she’d never be as successful a writer as she wanted to be. Men were in charge of everything including publishing and being successful. Joan believed her and was influenced by her. When she and Joe went to Vietnam, Joan watched a female journalist mix with the male writers and wished she could do the same. On the plane to Helsinki, she decides to leave him. Why did she decide at this time? Should we be proud of her or surprised that she waited so long to do this? Do female writers have more or less power today than in Jane Austen’s day? How many successful female writers from the 1920s or '30s can you think of?
Find this fascinating story in the fiction room under Wolitzer’s name at your Mendocino Community Library.