The Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman

by Alice Mattison

For years, following an early first marriage, Daisy Andalusia remained single and enjoyed the company of men on her own terms, making the most of her independent life. Now in her fifties, she has remarried and settled into a quieter life in New Haven, Connecticut. She's committed to a job she loves: organizing the clutter of other people's lives. Her business soon leads her to a Yale project studying murders in small cities. While her husband, an inner-city landlord, objects to her new interest, Daisy finds herself being drawn more and more into the project and closer to its director, Gordon Skeetling. When Daisy discovers an old tabloid article with the headline "Two-Headed Woman Weds Two Men: Doc Says She's Twins," she offers it as the subject for her theater group's improvisational play. Over eight transformative months, this headline will take on an increasing significance as Daisy questions whether she can truly be a part of anything -- a two-headed woman, a friendship, a marriage -- while discovering more about herself than she wants to know.

Genres: Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2004

About the author

Alice Mattison's new novel, WHEN WE ARGUED ALL NIGHT, will be published by Harper Perennial as a paperback original on June 12, 2012. She's the author of 5 other novels, most recently NOTHING IS QUITE FORGOTTEN IN BROOKLYN, 4 collections of stories, and a book of poems. Many of her stories have appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York and has lived for a long time in New Haven, Connecticut. She teaches fiction writing in the Bennington Writing Seminars, the low-residency MFA program at Bennington College in Vermont.

Reviews

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, this is exactly the kind of book I would normally hate: selfish middle-aged intellectual cheats on a good and loving, if flawed, spouse, and doesn't feel bad about it, makes philosophical observations while doing so. And yet, because this middle-aged intellectual was a woman, the convention is turned a little on its head. Plus, for whatever reason, I couldn't help liking Daisy. Yes, she acts like an asshole, but there's this childish wonder at her own behavior that is weirdly endearing--and the aforementioned philosophical musings feel like having a conversation with a really interesting person at a dinner party. A pleasant surprise.

[Hector Bajalan]

oh`

[Angie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish. So boring.