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Novel About My Wife
The story of a couple's emotional and complicated relationship; from the husband's perspective. Novel About My Wife is narrated by Tom Stone as he searches through the mysteries his wife has left him with. The reader is left to discover what dark thing has come between him and his beloved partner.
Tom Stone is, as well as being cheerfully neurotic, madly in love with his wife Ann, an Australian in self-imposed exile in London. Pushing forty and newly pregnant, they buy their first house in Hackney. It seems they are moving into a settled future, despite spiralling money troubles. But Ann is dogged by a local homeless man whose constant presence comes to feel like a terrible omen. As her pregnancy progresses Ann finds solace in her new friendship with Kate, a woman Tom is both repelled by and peculiarly drawn to. Their home is beset with vermin, smells and strange noises. Is this normal for London, or is the measure of normality in this city actually mad?
Novel About My Wife is Tom’s effort to understand this woman he has been so blindly in love with, and to peel back the past to see where the real threats in their lives were hiding. It is an investigation of guilt, love, forgiveness, and the perils of forgetting.
She wasn’t one of those women who hate their feet, who hate their bodies, the kind who turn the sight of their ass in broad daylight into a state secret. (God, you just find yourself dying for a glimpse, you’ll do anything to get it, hover outside the bathroom door, hide under a table, pull back the sheets when she’s sleeping. Then because of all the mystery you end up, when you’re finally feasting your eyes, thinking, ‘hey, maybe she has got something to worry about.’) Ann didn’t care. Her body was open for viewing. It was one of the ways she distracted you from what was inside her head.
--from Novel About My Wife
Tom Stone is, as well as being cheerfully neurotic, madly in love with his wife Ann, an Australian in self-imposed exile in London. Pushing forty and newly pregnant, they buy their first house in Hackney. It seems they are moving into a settled future, despite spiralling money troubles. But Ann is dogged by a local homeless man whose constant presence comes to feel like a terrible omen. As her pregnancy progresses Ann finds solace in her new friendship with Kate, a woman Tom is both repelled by and peculiarly drawn to. Their home is beset with vermin, smells and strange noises. Is this normal for London, or is the measure of normality in this city actually mad?
Novel About My Wife is Tom’s effort to understand this woman he has been so blindly in love with, and to peel back the past to see where the real threats in their lives were hiding. It is an investigation of guilt, love, forgiveness, and the perils of forgetting.
She wasn’t one of those women who hate their feet, who hate their bodies, the kind who turn the sight of their ass in broad daylight into a state secret. (God, you just find yourself dying for a glimpse, you’ll do anything to get it, hover outside the bathroom door, hide under a table, pull back the sheets when she’s sleeping. Then because of all the mystery you end up, when you’re finally feasting your eyes, thinking, ‘hey, maybe she has got something to worry about.’) Ann didn’t care. Her body was open for viewing. It was one of the ways she distracted you from what was inside her head.
--from Novel About My Wife
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
23 people are currently reading
1016 people want to read
About the author
Emily Perkins
26 books82 followersEmily Perkins is a writer of contemporary fiction, and the success of her first collection of stories, not her real name and other stories, established her early on as an important writer of her generation. Perkins has written novels, as well as short fiction, and her writing has won and been shortlisted for a number of significant awards and prizes. She was the 2006 Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellow, and she used the fellowship to work on her book, Novel About My Wife, published in 2008. She is an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award winner (2011).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 153 reviews
February 22, 2019
& I'm blown away by Ms Perkins writing gift. Every detail of the Stones' life & the world around them. is minutely observed & I really felt like I was back in London.
It's not an easy read mind, in spite of this book's short length. It is completely bleak & depressing. As someone who has made unwise financial choices in their past I could sympathise with the young couple's plight although the level of spending with no real money (Ann's job must have been very well paid) was staggering. I was wondering how much you can rack up on a credit card in the UK. & I kept thinking
The end just shattered me. I had finished the book after coming home from a night out. A couple of hours later, I realised what I had read & sat bolt upright in bed. Now that is how great fiction should affect you. I was going to deduct ½ a ★ for a couple of bits of nitpickery but have changed my mind.
& totally awesome cover!
It's not an easy read mind, in spite of this book's short length. It is completely bleak & depressing. As someone who has made unwise financial choices in their past I could sympathise with the young couple's plight although the level of spending with no real money (Ann's job must have been very well paid) was staggering. I was wondering how much you can rack up on a credit card in the UK. & I kept thinking
The end just shattered me. I had finished the book after coming home from a night out. A couple of hours later, I realised what I had read & sat bolt upright in bed. Now that is how great fiction should affect you. I was going to deduct ½ a ★ for a couple of bits of nitpickery but have changed my mind.
& totally awesome cover!
April 2, 2010
This book is written in the first person from the perspective of Tom, who is trying to make sense of his wife's breakdown and death.
I liked:
- the writing...beautiful descriptions of characters and very convincing observations of everyday life and relationships
- the slow build up of suspense
- how thought-provoking it was...sure, there were LOTS of gaps, but it really got me thinking about mental illness, and how it can be triggered by life's events. Also 'safety'...much of the suspense came from fear of 'external' threats, but in the end, it was the internal torment that was the most dangerous. And can someone ever truly escape their past? In terms of the writing, it was a great example of the limitations (and advantages) of the first-person perspective...we only know what Tom knows, and we have to decide how reliable he is as a narrator.
I didn't like:
- the lack of chapters (I really need chapter breaks as a cue to stop reading and go to sleep!)...but I suspect this was a device of the authors...I think the story was supposed to be relentless!
- the main character, Tom, who was selfish, immature, and too caught up in himself to really see or know his wife.
- the gaps in our understanding of Ann and the ambiguous ending. We are left wondering what really happened, and I was furiously flicking back trying to figure out what clues I had missed! A quick seach online (and an interview with Emily Perkins) reveals that I am not the only one, and this is how it is meant to be..."Tom's blindness becomes our own"...like Tom, we are left wondering what exactly had happened and why. Still frustrating though!
I liked:
- the writing...beautiful descriptions of characters and very convincing observations of everyday life and relationships
- the slow build up of suspense
- how thought-provoking it was...sure, there were LOTS of gaps, but it really got me thinking about mental illness, and how it can be triggered by life's events. Also 'safety'...much of the suspense came from fear of 'external' threats, but in the end, it was the internal torment that was the most dangerous. And can someone ever truly escape their past? In terms of the writing, it was a great example of the limitations (and advantages) of the first-person perspective...we only know what Tom knows, and we have to decide how reliable he is as a narrator.
I didn't like:
- the lack of chapters (I really need chapter breaks as a cue to stop reading and go to sleep!)...but I suspect this was a device of the authors...I think the story was supposed to be relentless!
- the main character, Tom, who was selfish, immature, and too caught up in himself to really see or know his wife.
- the gaps in our understanding of Ann and the ambiguous ending. We are left wondering what really happened, and I was furiously flicking back trying to figure out what clues I had missed! A quick seach online (and an interview with Emily Perkins) reveals that I am not the only one, and this is how it is meant to be..."Tom's blindness becomes our own"...like Tom, we are left wondering what exactly had happened and why. Still frustrating though!
January 9, 2010
I've seen many loving reviews of this book, and in fact grabbed it based on it winning book of the year or something of the sort from those clever literary bastards at McSweeny's or derivative of that pool.
It would fail to hit my top 30 books of 2009 list. I found the story convoluted, sweeping in abstractions and overtly suggesting without telling--which likely is why those eggers folks got all wet for it--none of which does anything to remove my irritation at an author trying to be clever, without really being clever.
i also saw it described roughly (by a woman no doubt) as an accurate look at the male mind, hopes and fears despite being written by a woman, and I'd be willing argue its more a woman's take on a man's mind and fears. I'm quite sure it does represent large swaths of modern men, aptly and finally emasculated into shivering masses of middle aged fear but I think it only describes their state, not their manhood. Moreover, you can't really evaluate a man for being a man, or thinking like a man when every male instinct, sense, and impulse has been cowed out of him, can you? So the male she describes really fails to represent anything near a man, much less his fears and hopes.
A heavy and uninteresting story addled with quirky characters and modern middle aged fantasy which never quite finds its way, it's point, or any momentum.
It would fail to hit my top 30 books of 2009 list. I found the story convoluted, sweeping in abstractions and overtly suggesting without telling--which likely is why those eggers folks got all wet for it--none of which does anything to remove my irritation at an author trying to be clever, without really being clever.
i also saw it described roughly (by a woman no doubt) as an accurate look at the male mind, hopes and fears despite being written by a woman, and I'd be willing argue its more a woman's take on a man's mind and fears. I'm quite sure it does represent large swaths of modern men, aptly and finally emasculated into shivering masses of middle aged fear but I think it only describes their state, not their manhood. Moreover, you can't really evaluate a man for being a man, or thinking like a man when every male instinct, sense, and impulse has been cowed out of him, can you? So the male she describes really fails to represent anything near a man, much less his fears and hopes.
A heavy and uninteresting story addled with quirky characters and modern middle aged fantasy which never quite finds its way, it's point, or any momentum.
March 16, 2013
Twelve years ago, aged twenty-five, New Zealand writer Emily Perkins was literature’s latest Next Big Thing. Her debut short story collection, Not Her Real Name, was glowingly reviewed in London, Australia and New Zealand. The stories were witty, moving interior snapshots of teenagers and early-twentysomethings moving clumsily into the opening straits of adulthood, shifting in and out of relationships and share houses. The book was followed by two novels (Leave Before You Go and The New Girl), neither of them anywhere near as good. It seemed that her taut, darkly comic observational style didn’t survive the stretch into the longer format.
Perkins’ third novel (her first book in seven years) is not just a return to form – it’s her best work yet. Novel About My Wife is a psychological thriller narrated by a grieving husband trying to resurrect the wife he worshipped by reflecting on their life together, particularly the year leading up to her death. Too late, he attempts to piece together how and why things went wrong. The answers lie in the gaps: in things unsaid or truths blurred; motives and cryptic comments left unexamined.
A pervasive sense of dread hangs over the novel, a sinister sense of the not-quite-right. Struggling screenwriter Tom and sculptor Ann, who works sculpting body moulds for cancer patients, are on the cusp of their forties. They’re newly “mortgaged to the eyeballs” for their “postage stamp of earth” in London’s Hackney, preparing for the birth of their first child. Meanwhile, Ann is convinced that a local homeless man is stalking her. She is plagued by smells, insects and fleeting appearances by “the man”. No one else (including Tom) sees any of these apparitions; their existence is in question.
As Ann’s pregnancy progresses and the credit card bills escalate, so does Tom’s desperation. His last hope seems to be Simon, a successful screenwriter and “transatlantic asshole” who, with his hippie wife Kate, drifts into an uneasy friendship of sorts with the couple. Tom is the classic unreliable narrator: he’s a fantasist who deliberately fails to see (or misinterprets) details that interfere with his chosen vision of the world, only to be constantly shocked by the inevitable. His tendencies magnify the novel’s brooding sense of uncertainty, as the reader constantly questions his version of events.
Both Simon and Alan – a producer with a pregnant wife, who flees to the financial security of advertising – represent alternative paths for Tom. He is blazingly aware that, if not for an incident (involving Ann) that had him fired by a Hollywood director, he could be enjoying life in a tree-lined, trendy suburb. But although they are living on credit cards, three mortgage payments behind, and he hasn’t earned a cent in five months, he sniffs at Alan’s “mid-life crisis” and Ann’s artist friends alike. He proudly reflects, “Self expression, all that jazz ... if Ann didn’t work at Barts and I didn’t write for money, there wouldn’t be this house, wouldn’t be the baby.”
Alongside the sinister element, Novel About My Wife is a biting social satire. Perkins has brilliantly refined the observational style that was the jewel of her early promise: she coolly dissects the foibles and predilections of her milieu with knife-sharp sentences that lay her characters bare in a flick of the literary wrist: “At last I had earned the right to be a grizzled unshaven dad, picking up my cafe latte of a morning, marsupial baby cradled in the sling, giving the wife a few minutes’ rest.” But most of all, this is a novel about relationships: our tendencies to see what we look for in the people we love and to keep elements of ourselves private, and the ways those secret, subterranean selves can become important.
This review was first published in The Age.
Perkins’ third novel (her first book in seven years) is not just a return to form – it’s her best work yet. Novel About My Wife is a psychological thriller narrated by a grieving husband trying to resurrect the wife he worshipped by reflecting on their life together, particularly the year leading up to her death. Too late, he attempts to piece together how and why things went wrong. The answers lie in the gaps: in things unsaid or truths blurred; motives and cryptic comments left unexamined.
A pervasive sense of dread hangs over the novel, a sinister sense of the not-quite-right. Struggling screenwriter Tom and sculptor Ann, who works sculpting body moulds for cancer patients, are on the cusp of their forties. They’re newly “mortgaged to the eyeballs” for their “postage stamp of earth” in London’s Hackney, preparing for the birth of their first child. Meanwhile, Ann is convinced that a local homeless man is stalking her. She is plagued by smells, insects and fleeting appearances by “the man”. No one else (including Tom) sees any of these apparitions; their existence is in question.
As Ann’s pregnancy progresses and the credit card bills escalate, so does Tom’s desperation. His last hope seems to be Simon, a successful screenwriter and “transatlantic asshole” who, with his hippie wife Kate, drifts into an uneasy friendship of sorts with the couple. Tom is the classic unreliable narrator: he’s a fantasist who deliberately fails to see (or misinterprets) details that interfere with his chosen vision of the world, only to be constantly shocked by the inevitable. His tendencies magnify the novel’s brooding sense of uncertainty, as the reader constantly questions his version of events.
Both Simon and Alan – a producer with a pregnant wife, who flees to the financial security of advertising – represent alternative paths for Tom. He is blazingly aware that, if not for an incident (involving Ann) that had him fired by a Hollywood director, he could be enjoying life in a tree-lined, trendy suburb. But although they are living on credit cards, three mortgage payments behind, and he hasn’t earned a cent in five months, he sniffs at Alan’s “mid-life crisis” and Ann’s artist friends alike. He proudly reflects, “Self expression, all that jazz ... if Ann didn’t work at Barts and I didn’t write for money, there wouldn’t be this house, wouldn’t be the baby.”
Alongside the sinister element, Novel About My Wife is a biting social satire. Perkins has brilliantly refined the observational style that was the jewel of her early promise: she coolly dissects the foibles and predilections of her milieu with knife-sharp sentences that lay her characters bare in a flick of the literary wrist: “At last I had earned the right to be a grizzled unshaven dad, picking up my cafe latte of a morning, marsupial baby cradled in the sling, giving the wife a few minutes’ rest.” But most of all, this is a novel about relationships: our tendencies to see what we look for in the people we love and to keep elements of ourselves private, and the ways those secret, subterranean selves can become important.
This review was first published in The Age.
May 25, 2014
I had never come across the this remarkable author before. I loved the way Emily Perkins writes. For me I truly loved and enjoyed every minute of Novel About My Wife. I would definitely read more of Emily Perkin's novels. There definitely is tension that build up in this story. Tom Stone describes how madly in love he is with his wife by telling us in detail about her body and her Red fine crackle of hair. Tom a screen writer tells us how his Wife Ann dreamed about an accident on a train which came true. Ann pregnant was a derailed train. We learn early in the story that sadly Ann dies leaving Tom to bring up their baby alone. Then the story flicks in to the life they shared together. Ann was certain someone was following her or in the bedroom behind the door. When Tom looked he saw no one. So much happens in this brilliant paced novel. I recommend readers to read A Novel About My Wife. Emily Perkins lives in New Zealand is the author of the novels Not Her Real Name, Leave Before You Go and The New Girl.
December 7, 2015
This is the sort of book you need to discuss imnediately upon finishibg, like PTSD in book form. Wonderfully written but too open ended for me. What were all the flashbacks in Fiji about? i was waiting to read about the one incident that would explain the story. It was implied that Tom left Fiji and allowed himself to get fired because something terrible happened there. But what? Ann had a fever? That would imply a medical illness, not a psychiatric one. Why was Hallie important to yhis story? I have no idea. i believe the train derailment symbolised the beginning of a mental derangement. She sounded bipolar and it appeared pregnancy exacerbated that. I really think if someone was that mentally ill their friends and family would have an inkling. Her friends all believed her every story, making me wonder if she was mad or not. No one else thought she was. I would have liked the story a lot more if only i knew what it was really about.
February 19, 2012
Going by the blurb, I should have really liked this book. And it started out promising. But it devolved into a way too confusing story told from the perspective of an unlikeable narrator (not a unlikeable yet sympathetic narrator, just plain unlikeable). I'm still not even sure what happened, and the characters felt pretty flat for the most part. One of my biggest pet peeves is too much style and not enough substance, and that's the biggest issue here. Perkins has a distinctive style, but by adhering to this style, the plot is fragmented, the characters underdeveloped, and I finished this book with too many unanswered questions. Shame. It could have been really good.
September 1, 2025
(2.5) Although Emily Perkins was a new name to me, the New Zealand author has published five novels and a short story collection. Unfortunately, I never engaged with her London-set Novel About My Wife. On the one hand, it must have been an intriguing challenge for Perkins to inhabit a man’s perspective and examine how a widower might recreate his marriage and his late wife’s mental state. “I can’t speak for Ann[,] obviously, only about her,” screenwriter Tom Stone admits. On the other hand, Tom is so egotistical and self-absorbed that his portrait of Ann is more obfuscating than illuminating.
“If I could build her again using words, I would,” he opens, but that promising start just leads into paragraphs of physical description. Bare facts, such as that Ann was from Sydney and created radiation masks for cancer patients in a hospital, are hardly revealing. We mostly know Ann through her delusions. In her late thirties, when she was three months pregnant with their son Arlo, she was caught in an underground train derailment. Thereafter, she increasingly fell victim to paranoia, believing that she was being stalked and that their house was infested. We’re invited to speculate that pregnancy exacerbated her mental health issues and that postpartum psychosis may have had something to do with her death.
I mostly skimmed the novel, so I may have missed some plot points, but what stood out to me were Tom’s unpleasant depictions of women and complaints about his faltering career. (He’s envious of a new acquaintance, Simon, who’s back and forth to Hollywood all the time for successful screenwriting projects.) Interspersed are seemingly pointless excerpts from Tom’s screenplay about a trip he and Ann took to Fiji. I longed for the balance of another perspective. This had a bit of the flavour of early Maggie O’Farrell, but none of the warmth.
Being generous to Perkins, perhaps the very point she was trying to make is that it’s impossible to get outside of one’s own perspective and understand what’s going on with a spouse, especially one who has mental health struggles. Had Tom been more attentive and supportive, might things have ended differently?
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
“If I could build her again using words, I would,” he opens, but that promising start just leads into paragraphs of physical description. Bare facts, such as that Ann was from Sydney and created radiation masks for cancer patients in a hospital, are hardly revealing. We mostly know Ann through her delusions. In her late thirties, when she was three months pregnant with their son Arlo, she was caught in an underground train derailment. Thereafter, she increasingly fell victim to paranoia, believing that she was being stalked and that their house was infested. We’re invited to speculate that pregnancy exacerbated her mental health issues and that postpartum psychosis may have had something to do with her death.
I mostly skimmed the novel, so I may have missed some plot points, but what stood out to me were Tom’s unpleasant depictions of women and complaints about his faltering career. (He’s envious of a new acquaintance, Simon, who’s back and forth to Hollywood all the time for successful screenwriting projects.) Interspersed are seemingly pointless excerpts from Tom’s screenplay about a trip he and Ann took to Fiji. I longed for the balance of another perspective. This had a bit of the flavour of early Maggie O’Farrell, but none of the warmth.
Being generous to Perkins, perhaps the very point she was trying to make is that it’s impossible to get outside of one’s own perspective and understand what’s going on with a spouse, especially one who has mental health struggles. Had Tom been more attentive and supportive, might things have ended differently?
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
September 13, 2016
Well, first impressions: damn the girl can write.
I knew this already. Emily Perkins tutored me in the sixth form. Ok, not actually (that would have been too cool) but through her work she most definitely did. My mum had been studying Not Her Real Name at the time (Perkin's debut--a collection of short stories). To my sixteen year old blank-slate-of-a-self, fresh off the bat from reading Go Ask Alice and those awful (truly awful) Flowers in the Attic books, Perkin's stories, her writing, was exactly the inspiration I craved. There was a particular one, written entirely in second person present tense, that I emulated in style in a short story of my own. So Emily helped me rock my sixth form portfolio with the highest possible marks (ecstatic young me and ecstatic teachers who were left puzzled as to who had taught me second person present tense). You know, these defining moments in your young life that set you up for your future--my love for literature and writing may well, in part, be due to this little marker. One of many along the way.
So, I know Emily. ;)
And while eager to read this book I was also a little apprehensive. I knew it would be worthy of selection for one of my Women's Lit papers: gritty, far from feel-good, character driven, packed with symbolism, things unsaid and focussed on the human reaction. I knew it was going to make me work to read it. Which I'm not opposed to (far from it at times) I just need to be in the right frame of mind.
So in a way I was pleasantly surprised. The pacing never lagged and, from the get go, I fell right in to the world of Tom. I now have a love/hate relationship with the man. I didn't love him but the way he was written made me giddy. I had to put the book down and take a breath at times, or laugh out loud while shaking my head at the brilliance of Perkins. Tom is truly alive on the page. Every sad little self absorbed inch of him. I could read Tom over and over just to delight in how perfectly executed he is.
Perkins is a master of the human reaction. I could feel and see my own reaction in so many of her descriptions. She has a truly remarkable way with words. It's hard to explain without examples. I was tempted to highlight or fold over the pages of some of my favourite lines but I never did and now I don't have the energy to flip back through the book looking for them. Note to self for next time.
I am confused about exactly what happened to Ann. But so was Tom and I am, after all, reading his book. I am content with my own guesses. Maybe it's just that I was never reading this book for the plot in the first place, I was too swept up in the characters. I looove a good action packed page flipping saga (believe me) but I knew from the outset that this wasn't going to be one. And I can say that I love this book for what it was. And what was that? I don't know. An engaging, shocking, beautifully constructed glimpse into the life of a real person.
I don't love this book in the way that I love my old favourites. But I give it four stars for the way it moved me through both prose and content. [Note: I can count on one hand the number of people I would recommend this baby to, so if it doesn't sound like your cup of tea I suggest you don't even go there.]
And while I would like to pick up another of Perkins' novels it will not be any time soon. I am in need of something completely different. In fact this book's polar opposite (in trilogy form, no less) is sitting up on my bedside table right now. And the thought of that is making me itchy to get this mumblejumbled review finished and head upstairs with a cup of tea.
So that's exactly what I'm going to do! :)
I knew this already. Emily Perkins tutored me in the sixth form. Ok, not actually (that would have been too cool) but through her work she most definitely did. My mum had been studying Not Her Real Name at the time (Perkin's debut--a collection of short stories). To my sixteen year old blank-slate-of-a-self, fresh off the bat from reading Go Ask Alice and those awful (truly awful) Flowers in the Attic books, Perkin's stories, her writing, was exactly the inspiration I craved. There was a particular one, written entirely in second person present tense, that I emulated in style in a short story of my own. So Emily helped me rock my sixth form portfolio with the highest possible marks (ecstatic young me and ecstatic teachers who were left puzzled as to who had taught me second person present tense). You know, these defining moments in your young life that set you up for your future--my love for literature and writing may well, in part, be due to this little marker. One of many along the way.
So, I know Emily. ;)
And while eager to read this book I was also a little apprehensive. I knew it would be worthy of selection for one of my Women's Lit papers: gritty, far from feel-good, character driven, packed with symbolism, things unsaid and focussed on the human reaction. I knew it was going to make me work to read it. Which I'm not opposed to (far from it at times) I just need to be in the right frame of mind.
So in a way I was pleasantly surprised. The pacing never lagged and, from the get go, I fell right in to the world of Tom. I now have a love/hate relationship with the man. I didn't love him but the way he was written made me giddy. I had to put the book down and take a breath at times, or laugh out loud while shaking my head at the brilliance of Perkins. Tom is truly alive on the page. Every sad little self absorbed inch of him. I could read Tom over and over just to delight in how perfectly executed he is.
Perkins is a master of the human reaction. I could feel and see my own reaction in so many of her descriptions. She has a truly remarkable way with words. It's hard to explain without examples. I was tempted to highlight or fold over the pages of some of my favourite lines but I never did and now I don't have the energy to flip back through the book looking for them. Note to self for next time.
I am confused about exactly what happened to Ann. But so was Tom and I am, after all, reading his book. I am content with my own guesses. Maybe it's just that I was never reading this book for the plot in the first place, I was too swept up in the characters. I looove a good action packed page flipping saga (believe me) but I knew from the outset that this wasn't going to be one. And I can say that I love this book for what it was. And what was that? I don't know. An engaging, shocking, beautifully constructed glimpse into the life of a real person.
I don't love this book in the way that I love my old favourites. But I give it four stars for the way it moved me through both prose and content. [Note: I can count on one hand the number of people I would recommend this baby to, so if it doesn't sound like your cup of tea I suggest you don't even go there.]
And while I would like to pick up another of Perkins' novels it will not be any time soon. I am in need of something completely different. In fact this book's polar opposite (in trilogy form, no less) is sitting up on my bedside table right now. And the thought of that is making me itchy to get this mumblejumbled review finished and head upstairs with a cup of tea.
So that's exactly what I'm going to do! :)
June 9, 2009
This was weird. The prose was brutal and vicious and not very inviting- the guy narrating is a jerk, and he knows it, and he's constantly beating himself up for it, except that's never really at the fore because he's not telling a story about himself- he's telling a story about his wife. Duh.
The way it felt to read the uninviting prose reminded me a little bit of the time I asked Rach- who is from Australia- to recommend me an Australian author to read, and she said Tim Winton, so I read a book or maybe two of his. Ms. Perkins is from New Zealand, even though this book is set in London, so maybe there's some connection there, but I don't know. Whatever. I wanted to put this down but I didn't because I was traveling and I knew I'd never pick it up again, so I pushed through it and I'm glad I did- I'm just not really inspired to pick up the rest of this author's stuff. Also? Oh my god, best book cover in a long long time. A bonus star for having such a good cover!
The way it felt to read the uninviting prose reminded me a little bit of the time I asked Rach- who is from Australia- to recommend me an Australian author to read, and she said Tim Winton, so I read a book or maybe two of his. Ms. Perkins is from New Zealand, even though this book is set in London, so maybe there's some connection there, but I don't know. Whatever. I wanted to put this down but I didn't because I was traveling and I knew I'd never pick it up again, so I pushed through it and I'm glad I did- I'm just not really inspired to pick up the rest of this author's stuff. Also? Oh my god, best book cover in a long long time. A bonus star for having such a good cover!
July 10, 2009
This book stayed with me a long time after I read it...in fact, it was the type of story I instantly wanted to read again from the beginning to look for foreshadowing clues and see what I had innocently missed before I knew the final outcomes (I actually did re-read the first few chapters, and skim through a few scenes again after finishing). A good one to discuss and puzzle over...I also love when a female writer can channel a male narrative voice so successfully, without sounding heavy-handed or forced...or completely fake. Sometimes I hate when the publishers/marketers put a main character on the cover, as it can interfere with the mental picture you devise on your own.
October 3, 2014
This is the second book by Emily Perkins I've read and it's cemented the fact that I love her writing style. She really knows how to set the mood and tone for a novel in order to build tension and evoke emotions in the reader. This was a very unique story that'll I'll be thinking about for days, possibly weeks and months, to come.
March 31, 2020
In the end, disappointing. I am tempted to put this down to subjective dislike, as opposed to any objective flaw with the book - which is a sensitively described tale from the point of view of a man with a young child, telling the story of the now deceased woman who was the wife and mother of he and his son. For all the beautiful observations on city life, for all the way characters were thoroughly and realistically painted in the main, in the end I basically got a bit bored. There is a late drama of the format of 'the bad thing you are waiting to be revealed', but in my opinion it took too long to get there, what preceded was often a little banal, and (perhaps most importantly) I ended up not much liking the two main characters. The neurotic and irresponsible husband, the flaky and 'sassy' or 'bolshy' but in truth just unpleasant wife and their mundane speckled with crazy London lives and friends, I didn't really care what happened to them in the end.
August 16, 2012
This book drove me crazy. We knew that Tom's wife Anne died from the very start and I kept listening (audio book) to see how she died, but even now having finished it I feel I don't really know what happened.
In the scene where he came home just before she died, she thinks the 'man' is in the house again and she seems to have cut off all her hair, but that was quite vague and no futher reference made to it. Then he says she never regained consciousness before she died and something about a broken neck, but again many questions.
And what about the character Hallie? No satisfying answer to the question 'did he know Anne in Sydney' in her 'previous' life.
The book contained quite a lot of bad language, which to be fair probably gives you a bit more of a surprise on an audio CD than it would in a book. Some words just aren't necessary though.
There were some really funny, laugh out loud bits from him and sometimes I came very close to ejecting the CD and completely giving up on it (but I hate not to finish a book). Overall most unsatisfying.
In the scene where he came home just before she died, she thinks the 'man' is in the house again and she seems to have cut off all her hair, but that was quite vague and no futher reference made to it. Then he says she never regained consciousness before she died and something about a broken neck, but again many questions.
And what about the character Hallie? No satisfying answer to the question 'did he know Anne in Sydney' in her 'previous' life.
The book contained quite a lot of bad language, which to be fair probably gives you a bit more of a surprise on an audio CD than it would in a book. Some words just aren't necessary though.
There were some really funny, laugh out loud bits from him and sometimes I came very close to ejecting the CD and completely giving up on it (but I hate not to finish a book). Overall most unsatisfying.
April 1, 2009
Really 3.5 stars. Fantastically written; really nice, exquisite details about the nuances of interacting with people (a feeling like a hand shoving into your chest when you first enter into the home of a man you already dislike; the ease of talking about a mundane thing with a friend to avoid the real thing; and lots and lots of what's kinda creepy about love). It's very dark and while the pervasive feelings of fear and dread allow for a lot of these taut, precise observations, they are also a bit contagious off of the page in a kind of neo-Gothic way (not just ghosts, but the specter of credit card debit, too, ooooooo ooooooo oooooo). It made me laugh out loud a few times, and I was impressed with Perkins' ability to render a convincing male consciousness. There was something pleasantly queer about it.
March 10, 2011
Finished it yesterdy and am still dwelling on what happened to Ann, which is a recommendation in itself as the book has really stayed with me.
Unlike other some reviewers, I didn't mind Tom. He certainly wasn't a heroic character or anything like that, but an ordinary Everyman, full of insecurities and vanities, and I found it easy to relate to him. Ann seemed more distant and un-knowable, which was just how she was to Tom.
The novel's structure had me reading it pretty much in one sitting, and as the inevitable loomed I got more and more drawn in. The ending does leave you wondering whether you can go back and re read the book to find more clues to the reason's behind Ann's death, but I think the open endedness emphasises the distance between these two main characters, and also between any two people in a relationship.
I'd certainly like to read more by this writer.
Unlike other some reviewers, I didn't mind Tom. He certainly wasn't a heroic character or anything like that, but an ordinary Everyman, full of insecurities and vanities, and I found it easy to relate to him. Ann seemed more distant and un-knowable, which was just how she was to Tom.
The novel's structure had me reading it pretty much in one sitting, and as the inevitable loomed I got more and more drawn in. The ending does leave you wondering whether you can go back and re read the book to find more clues to the reason's behind Ann's death, but I think the open endedness emphasises the distance between these two main characters, and also between any two people in a relationship.
I'd certainly like to read more by this writer.
April 7, 2012
This is a clever, dark, pacy and disturbing novel that kept me turning the pages, and ultimately left me slightly cold.
The problem may be that it is just a little too clever: Emily Perkins' determination to upend literary conventions (unreliable narrator for one thing; withholding the resolution for another) is a calculated risk that I'm not sure pays off.
The title is memorable but misleading: it's not really about the narrator (Tom's) wife, poor, hunted, manipulative, Ann, at all. Because at the end, you know not very much more about her than you learn from the brilliant opening passage. Rather, it's about Tom, and his middle class foibles and frustrations, his vanities and his moments of self-knowing.
For all that, this is a surprising and deft novel, and one I recommend.
The problem may be that it is just a little too clever: Emily Perkins' determination to upend literary conventions (unreliable narrator for one thing; withholding the resolution for another) is a calculated risk that I'm not sure pays off.
The title is memorable but misleading: it's not really about the narrator (Tom's) wife, poor, hunted, manipulative, Ann, at all. Because at the end, you know not very much more about her than you learn from the brilliant opening passage. Rather, it's about Tom, and his middle class foibles and frustrations, his vanities and his moments of self-knowing.
For all that, this is a surprising and deft novel, and one I recommend.
May 7, 2012
I found it a confusing and frustrating read. It just went over my head. So for the review - interesting in some ways because you keep reading hoping to clarify the situation or why the wife Ann was as she it. However it ends up as ramblings and moans of a failured screenwriter husband.
It's a page turner because the reader hopes something will happen or will be revealed but it really fails even on the last page.
I guess I like a straight narrative with a definite plot - too many questions were raised rather than answered with a lot of loose threads hanging at the end.
Emily Perkins is a good wordsmith but I didn't understand what she set out to achieve in this novel.
It's a page turner because the reader hopes something will happen or will be revealed but it really fails even on the last page.
I guess I like a straight narrative with a definite plot - too many questions were raised rather than answered with a lot of loose threads hanging at the end.
Emily Perkins is a good wordsmith but I didn't understand what she set out to achieve in this novel.
April 30, 2010
The narrator is completely cold and the object of his affection is even icier. I'm not done reading yet and am compelled to continue only by the main plot point- these characters are flat, bitter. There's no heart to them. Seems to be a bunch of jackals always snapping at each other.
Alright, finished it, am left confused, and unaffected. i didn't give a toss what happened to these characters and whatever it was that caused the wife's death wasn't transparent enough for me to sort it out.
verdict: avoid.
Alright, finished it, am left confused, and unaffected. i didn't give a toss what happened to these characters and whatever it was that caused the wife's death wasn't transparent enough for me to sort it out.
verdict: avoid.
September 10, 2010
I hated this book fairly early into it, but kept reading because even though I hated the main character, the husband telling the story, I was interested and wanted to know what happened to the wife. The writing is so convoluted and confusing that I had to re-read several passages and still could barely figure out what happened. I'm not an idiot, but this book was written purposefully to be annoying and confusing. I hated it. Felt bad for the wife, because she was the only decent character in the novel and she was dead.
January 7, 2012
I thought this book was amazing. For a book with no chapters (just stream of consciousness) it was a really quick read. The language was poetic; heart-wrenching, funny, rude, sweet. Both main characters annoyed me, but I think this added to the realistic nature of the book. I couldn't understand why Tom just didn't go out and work in a bar or something. You know a book is good when you can't stop thinking about it after finishing it. It's also one of those books which would improve on a second reading.
January 13, 2013
2 stars...it was ok, I disliked general things about this book, it didn't have any chapters for a start. The story itself is ok, a bit dour and long winded, and doesn't really go anywhere.
I like a book with a beginning, middle and ending.....this book doesn't really have an end, well it ended but didn't really tell me what I needed to know about Anne his wife and what happened to her as a child, a few clues that you can piece together but it's all a bit unclear to me, which is why I just didn't like it!
I like a book with a beginning, middle and ending.....this book doesn't really have an end, well it ended but didn't really tell me what I needed to know about Anne his wife and what happened to her as a child, a few clues that you can piece together but it's all a bit unclear to me, which is why I just didn't like it!
October 20, 2008
Compelling, well-written, and achingly sad. (I'm currently reading Nabokov's Timofey Pnin as a comic antidote to pull me out of the funk after reading this.) Written from the perspective of a man whose wife has died, you slowly learn the details leading to her death. Makes me wonder about the solidity of our relationships, and how well we know people in our lives. I want to read more by Perkins, but my public libraries carry hardly any of her books...
August 23, 2015
A study of the terror in regular lives, in small moments, in nothing really happening, with a mysterious ending. We may never know other people, we willingly and unwillingly miss their details. Oh, Ann. With your long everything (feet, hands, legs, hair), you're an artist reformed and haunted. Oh, Tom. You're so often unlikeable, but I felt your pain so clearly and sadly. Sincerely in love with Ann, even though you presented no reasons for her to love you even half as much.
August 27, 2008
I loved this book - I really enjoy Emily Perkins' writing style. I found myself reading a page here and there just to be able to keep going with the story, and I thought about the characters when I wasn't reading. That's always a good sign!
August 21, 2008
This is a sad and slightly disturbing novel about a man's relationship with his wife and how it goes wrong. So beautifully written that it had me gripped right until the last word. I often skim detail but I read every word of this. Inspired now to read more of her writing.
May 4, 2008
Another beautifully written, poignant and painful novel by Emily Perkins. The characters, the London, and the growing sense of despair that she's captured here had me hooked from beginning to end.
May 5, 2009
i felt like i was going mad with her ...
August 24, 2009
Amazing book. Lot's of tension.
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December 8, 2017I really enjoyed reading this, was gripped by all the small paranoid details that crept in around the edges.
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