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This is a short story by the American novelist and short story writer Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941). It was included in The Best American Short Stories of the Century (John Updike-Editor)
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About the author
Sherwood Anderson
441 books612 followersOften autobiographical, works of American writer Sherwood Anderson include
Winesburg, Ohio
(1919).
He supported his family and consequently never finished high school. He successfully managed a paint factory in Elyria before 1912 and fathered three children with the first of his four wives. In 1912, Anderson deserted his family and job.
In early 1913, he moved to Chicago, where he devoted more time to his imagination. He broke with considered materialism and convention to commit to art as a consequently heroic model for youth.
Mainly know for his short stories, most notably the collection Winesburg, Ohio. One can hear its profound influence on fiction in Ernest Miller Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Clayton Wolfe, John Ernst Steinbeck, and Erskine Preston Caldwell.
Most important book collects 22 stories. The stories explore the inhabitants of a fictional version of Clyde, the small farm town, where Anderson lived for twelve early years. These tales made a significant break with the traditional short story. Instead of emphasizing plot and action, Anderson used a simple, precise, unsentimental style to reveal the frustration, loneliness, and longing in the lives of his characters. The narrowness of Midwestern small-town life and their own limitations stunt these characters.
Despite no wholly successful novel, Anderson composed several classic short stories. He influenced Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald and the coming generation.
He supported his family and consequently never finished high school. He successfully managed a paint factory in Elyria before 1912 and fathered three children with the first of his four wives. In 1912, Anderson deserted his family and job.
In early 1913, he moved to Chicago, where he devoted more time to his imagination. He broke with considered materialism and convention to commit to art as a consequently heroic model for youth.
Mainly know for his short stories, most notably the collection Winesburg, Ohio. One can hear its profound influence on fiction in Ernest Miller Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Clayton Wolfe, John Ernst Steinbeck, and Erskine Preston Caldwell.
Most important book collects 22 stories. The stories explore the inhabitants of a fictional version of Clyde, the small farm town, where Anderson lived for twelve early years. These tales made a significant break with the traditional short story. Instead of emphasizing plot and action, Anderson used a simple, precise, unsentimental style to reveal the frustration, loneliness, and longing in the lives of his characters. The narrowness of Midwestern small-town life and their own limitations stunt these characters.
Despite no wholly successful novel, Anderson composed several classic short stories. He influenced Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald and the coming generation.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 26, 2023
Currently Clare Keegan holds my attention as short story writer who says little and trusts the reader to infer the rest. She seems to pull those stories out that lurk in crevices, the sort of stories told reluctantly, in bits and pieces, somehow hiding from the narrator or the protagonist. This is the way we all live. In that hinterland behind the display with uncomfortable thoughts and feelings we attempt to deny. Sherwood Anderson does the same.
Here's a man who has acted as a confessional to another needing to explain again and again how much he loves his wife. How much he never thinks about a brief encounter with someone outside the safe boundary of his class. How much he has definitely moved on. In the telling of the story, of course, he relives again and again the pleasure of that sanctified encounter, the dissonance it creates in his self image and the certain knowledge that his marriage is never going to compare Forbidden fruit.
Here's a man who has acted as a confessional to another needing to explain again and again how much he loves his wife. How much he never thinks about a brief encounter with someone outside the safe boundary of his class. How much he has definitely moved on. In the telling of the story, of course, he relives again and again the pleasure of that sanctified encounter, the dissonance it creates in his self image and the certain knowledge that his marriage is never going to compare Forbidden fruit.
June 24, 2022
It was good. It's about a crush on a market woman the protagonist is attracted to. I can't remember if it is an actual affair possibly turned into later, I read in my (second year)attempt at uni, where I transferred, and well, blar blar. Trickster titles, they can be misleading. And I'm turning 45 soon. He died while on cruise by choking on a toothpick eating hor d'ouevres. I went investigating his literature, some I bought some from library. Just because I liked Winesburg, Ohio. I think he also had trouble with alcoholism which isn't uncommon in writers.
August 6, 2015
I've arranged my thoughts into a haiku:
"Bolstered by success,
It's fun to take a gamble,
But don't call it love."
"Bolstered by success,
It's fun to take a gamble,
But don't call it love."
March 13, 2022
A story about what a man can't admit to himself.
February 2, 2026
Mission 2026: Binge reviewing (and rereading on occasion) all previous Reads, I was too slothful to review, back when I read them.
Greatest Short Stories
What is it all about (spoiler free)
A man, a marriage, and an attachment that exists largely in thought rather than action. The story unfolds in a space of hesitation and interior conflict, where longing is intense but expression remains restrained. What matters most is not what happens, but what is imagined, withheld, and quietly endured.
This is not a story about adultery. It is a story about ‘‘emotional displacement’’.
Why is it among the greatest?
Because Sherwood Anderson understood that modern alienation often expresses itself not through excess, but through ‘‘inarticulation’’.Let us analyze point by point:
1) ‘The Other Woman’ belongs to Anderson’s great project—later perfected in ‘Winesburg, Ohio’—of exploring people who cannot fully say what they want, even to themselves. The protagonist’s crisis is not moral in the conventional sense. He is not wrestling with temptation so much as with a vague, persistent sense that his emotional life has been misaligned from the beginning.
2) What makes the story powerful is its refusal to dramatise the affair. There is no melodrama, no fevered passion, no decisive rupture. Instead, Anderson lingers in the fog of indecision: the small encounters, the charged silences, the internal rehearsals that never become action. Desire here is not liberating; it is ‘‘paralysing’’.
3) Anderson’s prose is deliberately simple, almost bare. Sentences move slowly, circling the same emotional territory from slightly different angles. This repetition is not a flaw—it is the point. The character’s inability to move forward is mirrored in the narrative’s gentle stasis. Thought loops replace action.
4) The story also offers a quietly radical view of marriage for its time. The wife is not cruel, nor is the marriage overtly miserable. And that is precisely the problem. Anderson suggests that emotional starvation can occur even in the absence of abuse, that social respectability can coexist with profound inner emptiness. The “other woman” becomes less a person than a ‘‘symbolic alternative life’’—a projection of everything the protagonist feels he has missed.
5) Crucially, Anderson does not romanticise this projection. The imagined life is no more fully formed than the real one. The story exposes how longing itself can become a substitute for living, how dissatisfaction feeds on vagueness rather than clarity.
6) This moral ambiguity is what lifts the story above simple psychological sketch. No one is villainised. No one is redeemed. The reader is left with a sense of quiet waste—the waste of emotional potential, of unrealised selfhood, of conversations never risked.
Why read it in the present time and thereafter?
Because the condition Anderson diagnoses has only intensified.
In an age of endless choice, curated desire, and perpetual comparison, ‘The Other Woman’ feels eerily current. Many people today live not in scandalous affairs but in ‘‘parallel emotional lives’’—imagined versions of themselves that exist in text messages never sent, relationships never pursued, decisions perpetually postponed.
The story also speaks powerfully to the modern fear of disruption. The protagonist’s restraint mirrors contemporary anxieties about risk: better to endure dissatisfaction than to cause damage, better to fantasise than to act. Anderson shows the cost of that logic with painful clarity. The tragedy here is not what the character does, but what he ‘‘never allows himself to attempt’’.
Rereading the story later in life changes its emotional centre. Early readings may judge the protagonist harshly for his weakness or indecision. Later readings tend to recognise the deeper trap: a life structured around avoidance, where desire becomes something to be managed rather than understood.
In 2026 and beyond, ‘The Other Woman’ remains essential because it refuses easy moral binaries. It does not tell you what the right choice would have been. It shows you what happens when no choice is fully made at all.
This is not a story about passion. It is a story about ‘‘emotional timidity’’—and its quiet, cumulative consequences.
Read it now to see how restraint can wound. Read it later to see how often restraint masquerades as virtue.
Sherwood Anderson doesn’t shout. He listens.
And in that listening, he reveals how many lives are diminished not by catastrophe, but by the slow habit of settling.
Most recommended.
Greatest Short Stories
What is it all about (spoiler free)
A man, a marriage, and an attachment that exists largely in thought rather than action. The story unfolds in a space of hesitation and interior conflict, where longing is intense but expression remains restrained. What matters most is not what happens, but what is imagined, withheld, and quietly endured.
This is not a story about adultery. It is a story about ‘‘emotional displacement’’.
Why is it among the greatest?
Because Sherwood Anderson understood that modern alienation often expresses itself not through excess, but through ‘‘inarticulation’’.Let us analyze point by point:
1) ‘The Other Woman’ belongs to Anderson’s great project—later perfected in ‘Winesburg, Ohio’—of exploring people who cannot fully say what they want, even to themselves. The protagonist’s crisis is not moral in the conventional sense. He is not wrestling with temptation so much as with a vague, persistent sense that his emotional life has been misaligned from the beginning.
2) What makes the story powerful is its refusal to dramatise the affair. There is no melodrama, no fevered passion, no decisive rupture. Instead, Anderson lingers in the fog of indecision: the small encounters, the charged silences, the internal rehearsals that never become action. Desire here is not liberating; it is ‘‘paralysing’’.
3) Anderson’s prose is deliberately simple, almost bare. Sentences move slowly, circling the same emotional territory from slightly different angles. This repetition is not a flaw—it is the point. The character’s inability to move forward is mirrored in the narrative’s gentle stasis. Thought loops replace action.
4) The story also offers a quietly radical view of marriage for its time. The wife is not cruel, nor is the marriage overtly miserable. And that is precisely the problem. Anderson suggests that emotional starvation can occur even in the absence of abuse, that social respectability can coexist with profound inner emptiness. The “other woman” becomes less a person than a ‘‘symbolic alternative life’’—a projection of everything the protagonist feels he has missed.
5) Crucially, Anderson does not romanticise this projection. The imagined life is no more fully formed than the real one. The story exposes how longing itself can become a substitute for living, how dissatisfaction feeds on vagueness rather than clarity.
6) This moral ambiguity is what lifts the story above simple psychological sketch. No one is villainised. No one is redeemed. The reader is left with a sense of quiet waste—the waste of emotional potential, of unrealised selfhood, of conversations never risked.
Why read it in the present time and thereafter?
Because the condition Anderson diagnoses has only intensified.
In an age of endless choice, curated desire, and perpetual comparison, ‘The Other Woman’ feels eerily current. Many people today live not in scandalous affairs but in ‘‘parallel emotional lives’’—imagined versions of themselves that exist in text messages never sent, relationships never pursued, decisions perpetually postponed.
The story also speaks powerfully to the modern fear of disruption. The protagonist’s restraint mirrors contemporary anxieties about risk: better to endure dissatisfaction than to cause damage, better to fantasise than to act. Anderson shows the cost of that logic with painful clarity. The tragedy here is not what the character does, but what he ‘‘never allows himself to attempt’’.
Rereading the story later in life changes its emotional centre. Early readings may judge the protagonist harshly for his weakness or indecision. Later readings tend to recognise the deeper trap: a life structured around avoidance, where desire becomes something to be managed rather than understood.
In 2026 and beyond, ‘The Other Woman’ remains essential because it refuses easy moral binaries. It does not tell you what the right choice would have been. It shows you what happens when no choice is fully made at all.
This is not a story about passion. It is a story about ‘‘emotional timidity’’—and its quiet, cumulative consequences.
Read it now to see how restraint can wound. Read it later to see how often restraint masquerades as virtue.
Sherwood Anderson doesn’t shout. He listens.
And in that listening, he reveals how many lives are diminished not by catastrophe, but by the slow habit of settling.
Most recommended.
September 9, 2025
The Other Woman by Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson is the author of Winesburg, Ohio which is included in the Modern Library Top 100 books.
The Other Woman is a short story about, well…The Other Woman. There are three main characters involved, though this not about a ménage a trios. The hero and narrator is in love with the woman he is married to, but wants the wife of the tobacconist in his arms-
“I am in love with my wife “this how the story begins. It doesn’t seem that the interest in another man’s wife is just an infatuation. He was going to get married when he started thinking about this woman. Actually, it seems he is in love with both, in different ways, for he knows he wants to spend his life with his future wife. His bride-to-be writes him an emotional letter; in fact the whole story leaves with a feeling of warmth, delicacy, love, compassion and human feeling.
I have just read a list of movies and human strengths, with Buddha at spirituality, where else and about 50 other films. It would be interesting to have a list of books and human strengths- good books that teach, help you develop one strength or more.
The hero lacks self –control or his passion for the other woman is too powerful- he wants to dream, think of his future wife, but he cannot, he thinks about a love affair with the tobacconist’s wife.
His love for the bride-to-be was strangely unaffected, there was only one woman he wanted to spend his life with, but…he still wanted someone else in his arms. I have been married for about 17 years, what can I say…is this possible?
Regardless, this is a very good story.
Sherwood Anderson is the author of Winesburg, Ohio which is included in the Modern Library Top 100 books.
The Other Woman is a short story about, well…The Other Woman. There are three main characters involved, though this not about a ménage a trios. The hero and narrator is in love with the woman he is married to, but wants the wife of the tobacconist in his arms-
“I am in love with my wife “this how the story begins. It doesn’t seem that the interest in another man’s wife is just an infatuation. He was going to get married when he started thinking about this woman. Actually, it seems he is in love with both, in different ways, for he knows he wants to spend his life with his future wife. His bride-to-be writes him an emotional letter; in fact the whole story leaves with a feeling of warmth, delicacy, love, compassion and human feeling.
I have just read a list of movies and human strengths, with Buddha at spirituality, where else and about 50 other films. It would be interesting to have a list of books and human strengths- good books that teach, help you develop one strength or more.
The hero lacks self –control or his passion for the other woman is too powerful- he wants to dream, think of his future wife, but he cannot, he thinks about a love affair with the tobacconist’s wife.
His love for the bride-to-be was strangely unaffected, there was only one woman he wanted to spend his life with, but…he still wanted someone else in his arms. I have been married for about 17 years, what can I say…is this possible?
Regardless, this is a very good story.
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April 7, 2022I can't say that I cared for this.
The story was included in a short story collection that John Updike edited. It reminded me of a criticism of him from a youtuber turned war reporter who said "Updike is the kind of writer your professor would like..."
The story was included in a short story collection that John Updike edited. It reminded me of a criticism of him from a youtuber turned war reporter who said "Updike is the kind of writer your professor would like..."
July 7, 2025
Really underwhelmed by this short story. I think it was more due to the subject matter that I didn’t find a real connection and also I felt as though the protagonist was constantly on the defensive about what he felt.
December 14, 2017
You'll never read better translation than this edition.
Read
December 14, 2021Best American Shorts of the Century (Audio Book)
January 26, 2024
This was an interesting story of a man choosing his wife over a fling he tries not to think about even years later.
Read
February 8, 2010This is a great short story written with calm suspense and great psychological insight into the mind of a man on the eve of his marriage and yet, apparently, in love with another woman.
For a short story, it packs a lot of twists and turns, all believable, twists and turns that run the constant risk of losing the reader as they twist first this way and then that but, thanks to the skill of the writer and his awareness of the listener/reader, Anderson, the writer, keeps both audience and narrative close to each other until the tale's very satisfying, playful end.
This is a story and a writer worthy of careful study.
For a short story, it packs a lot of twists and turns, all believable, twists and turns that run the constant risk of losing the reader as they twist first this way and then that but, thanks to the skill of the writer and his awareness of the listener/reader, Anderson, the writer, keeps both audience and narrative close to each other until the tale's very satisfying, playful end.
This is a story and a writer worthy of careful study.
February 22, 2013
the main context here ,, is he really in love with his new wife ?? And does he love the tobbocaonist's wife ??
and the actual differences between them ,,
the relation between his new success , and to believe in himself or not ,, reflected on his love ,, to believe in his love or not ,, I mean his wife ...
I think the moment he will gain trust in himself will gain trust in his actual love ( his wife ) that he sometimes deny !
and the actual differences between them ,,
the relation between his new success , and to believe in himself or not ,, reflected on his love ,, to believe in his love or not ,, I mean his wife ...
I think the moment he will gain trust in himself will gain trust in his actual love ( his wife ) that he sometimes deny !
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews