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Seven Wives
A deliciously satirical postmodern romance
Seven Wives reimagines the search for an enduring passionate love. The too-much-loved narrator, Jack, an extension of the everyman hero of Baumbach’s novel Reruns marries seven women, including a childhood sweetheart, an older woman who turns out to be an unacceptably near relation, the loveliest woman in the world, a woman so fat that sex with her becomes impossibly difficult, and a woman who confuses violence and love. Jack’s quest for the perfect marriage is, of course, doomed to failure and ultimately leads him to the edge of madness, but it also produces seven bizarrely interesting near-misses along the way.
From his home in New York City, Jack tells his story after the fact, as a way of reclaiming himself. He obsesses not only about his search for the right woman but also about his quixotic pursuit of a version (or versions) of the American dream. Jack moves from cabdriver, to actor, to scriptwriter for pornographic movies, to entrepreneur, to Hollywood producer. Seven Wives treats marriage and career as inseparable pursuits on the same road to success. The two abiding issues of all of Baumbach’s fiction - the erratic workings of the imagination and the even more erratic workings of the human heart—appear in their purest form in his latest novel.
Seven Wives reimagines the search for an enduring passionate love. The too-much-loved narrator, Jack, an extension of the everyman hero of Baumbach’s novel Reruns marries seven women, including a childhood sweetheart, an older woman who turns out to be an unacceptably near relation, the loveliest woman in the world, a woman so fat that sex with her becomes impossibly difficult, and a woman who confuses violence and love. Jack’s quest for the perfect marriage is, of course, doomed to failure and ultimately leads him to the edge of madness, but it also produces seven bizarrely interesting near-misses along the way.
From his home in New York City, Jack tells his story after the fact, as a way of reclaiming himself. He obsesses not only about his search for the right woman but also about his quixotic pursuit of a version (or versions) of the American dream. Jack moves from cabdriver, to actor, to scriptwriter for pornographic movies, to entrepreneur, to Hollywood producer. Seven Wives treats marriage and career as inseparable pursuits on the same road to success. The two abiding issues of all of Baumbach’s fiction - the erratic workings of the imagination and the even more erratic workings of the human heart—appear in their purest form in his latest novel.
181 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Jonathan Baumbach
40 books17 followersBorn in Brooklyn, New York on July 5, 1933. Married Annette Grant (fourth wife) on Dec. 18, 2004. Former wives: Naomi Miller, Elinor Berkman, Georgia Brown. Children: David, Nina, Noah and Nico. A.B (English) Brooklyn College, MFA (Playwriting) Columbia University, Ph.D (English and American Lit), Stanford University. Fellowships include Guggenheim, National Endowment of the Arts, Merrill. Invented in 1973 (with Peter Spielberg) Fiction Collective, the first fiction writers cooperative in America; reinvented in 1988 as FC2. An unintentionally well-kept secret among contemporary American novelists. Author of 14 books of fiction
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January 2, 2026
While I appreciated the writing from this seasoned author, I did not, as the book jacket suggests, mistake blatant misogyny for satire. Are these musings forgivable due to the narrator’s predictable demise? Does ultimately exploiting oneself entitle them to a free pass? And after enduring all this introspection devoid of humility, is it too much to ask for some charming self deprecation? To quote the narrator: “It's my rule of thumb not to look back. I rarely have regrets, and I never, not even to myself, admit to having them.” Not a surprise.
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