Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.
Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!
- Becky of Aidanvale
- Kate of booksaremyfavoriteandbest
- Naomi of Consumed By Ink
- Rebecca of Bookish Beck
My Review
We learn that Tom’s wife Ann is dead, but we don’t know the cause for some time. Tom looks backward and forward along the length of their marriage trying to figure things out. Occasionally, there are scenes from a book manuscript he’s writing in which he tries to guess what happened in Fiji the weekend they got married.
Tom is a script writer, and Ann makes models of cancer patients’ body parts at a hospital. Feeling as if things are going well financially, they have bought a house in Hackney with a lot more space than in their flat. They love it, but when Tom’s job writing a script falls through because the producer leaves the field, he begins having trouble finding another job.
Ann comes home from work one day and tells Tom that she saw her stalker at work. Tom didn’t know she had a stalker, but she says she has spotted him in various places.
Ann is Australian, but she has lost her accent and doesn’t want to talk about her past. She also has a history with drugs that she doesn’t seem as secretive about.
It’s hard to explain what this book is about without giving away too much, although the blurb just goes ahead and gives away a major plot point. Let’s just say that the tension level rises as Ann becomes pregnant, Tom still can’t find a job, and Ann’s behavior becomes manic at times. Ann has secrets, but she’s not telling.
Without being a thriller but more an intense examination of a relationship, Perkins’ book skillfully builds up quite a bit of suspense. It liked it a lot.
What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?
The relationship described here is so complex that it’s hard to answer that question. Or maybe Ann is complex and unknowable. At first, I was annoyed at this couple and their dismissive attitude to many people and things, but after a while I began to like them. Still, Tom doesn’t seem to notice that Ann’s behavior is getting more bizarre, that she keeps going after ant infestations, for example, when Tom doesn’t see any ants or staying up all night rearranging things into weird configurations. In the meantime, he is both spending money and worrying about debt. Both of them seem to be subject to compulsive behaviors.
Secrets seem to be a big problem. Although the two love each other, they both keep their secrets—Ann about her life in Australia and the events in Fiji, Tom about the state of his work, and the level of their debt. The culmination comes when she finds out the truth about another secret he’s keeping.
What? Me Read? 
Ah, you liked it more than the rest of us. I think I probably missed some of the ‘reveals’ because I failed to engage with the book and skimmed a lot of it. I would agree with you that Tom/Perkins concludes that Ann was unknowable.
Well, that’s the book’s fault, I would say. Maybe all people are essentially unknowable. After all, you can’t know everything about anyone. I’m finding my sister unknowable these days!
That was a joke.
😂
Is this a thriller? Sounds very convoluted, but without much payoff at the end.
No, not really. It is more just a puzzle that the husband is trying to figure out. It ends ambiguously, in a way, but you get to draw your own conclusions. That didn’t bother me, but it bothered some of our other club members.
Glad you got a bit more out of it than the rest of us! I think I’d been hoping for a bit more suspense (I thought that it was heading that way when I started) but honestly, it lost me when the coincidence of Simon/Kate/Ann meeting at the beginning and Simon being instrumental in movies was revealed. All too neat!
I thought it might be headed that way, too, for a while.
It sounds quite hard to categorise! I’m never too keen when we learn that one of the main characters is dead at the beginning, since that usually kills the suspense. But you say it manages to get quite a bit of suspense going anyway!
Well, it has some suspense, as you wonder what is going on, but it’s not really a suspense novel or a thriller.
Your take on what is says about being a wife was more positive than mine which is good, I’m glad someone got a bit more out of it.
She was succumbing to mental illness, and he wasn’t paying attention.