Wife

Description

‘A master at family drama’ The Times

Set in the world of London academia, both past and present, Wife by Charlotte Mendelson is heart-breaking and funny, profound and gripping, as it takes the reader from the end of a relationship to its beginning, and back again.

When Zoe moves in with Penny, their relationship looks perfect; after all, everyone wants a wife. But this is the story of how love can become a disaster . . .

When Zoe Stamper, specialist in Ancient Greek Tragedy, meets fellow academic Dr Penny Cartwright at a faculty music recital, she seems impossibly glamorous to Zoe, who is, after all, several rungs down the academic pecking order – and a nervous ingnue as far as Pennys sophisticated circle is concerned. But Penny leaves Zoe a cryptic note, and a passionate affair ensues . . .

Once Penny confesses all to her live-in lover, Justine, their happiness seems assured. But there is something else Penny needs as badly in her life as Zoes adoration, and thus the beginning of their affair might also have signalled its end . . .

Wife is a beautifully observed and coruscating novel about the joys of passionate love and motherhood, and those left behind in its wake when passion curdles.

Author Information

Charlotte Mendelsons previous novel, The Exhibitionist, was longlisted for the Womens Prize for Fiction and was The Times Novel of the Year 2022, as well as a book of the year in The Guardian and Good Housekeeping. Her other novels include Almost English, which was longlisted for both the Man Booker and the Womens Prize for Fiction; When We Were Bad, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and was a book of the year in The Observer, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New Statesman and The Spectator; Daughters of Jerusalem, which won both the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize; and Love in Idleness. Wife is her sixth novel.