Meg Wolitzer's novels include The Female Persuasion; Sleepwalking; This Is Your Life; Surrender, Dorothy; and The Position. She lives in New York City.
Praise for The Wife
"Just a few paragraphs into Meg Wolitzer's new novel, The Wife, I
could tell this was going to be a book I'd be recommending to all
those people, everyone from my close friends to my dermatologist,
who routinely, but thirstily ask, 'Have you read anything good
lately?' "--Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR "There is an almighty
twist that I still think about on a weekly basis. No one writes
about artistic ambition like Wolitzer, and as The Wife will remind
you forever, no partnership--domestic or otherwise--is ever as what
it seems." --Delia Cai, Vanity Fair "To say that The Wife is
Wolitzer's most ambitious novel to date is an understatement. This
important book introduces another side of a writer we thought we
knew: Never before has she written so feverishly, so courageously.
It almost becomes possible to imagine a female Philip Roth: The
keep intelligence, rage, neurosis and humor are certainly equal to
his, but this is not to say the book is derivative. Hers is a
wholly original voice." --The Washington Post "Meg Wolitzer has
ripened into a chanteuse of a writer, a Dietrich of fiction; her
smoky humor, her languid look at life, her breathless sentences are
all let loose a little more than usual in The Wife?.Wolitzer's
world is John Updike's world, but her writing is at once grittier
and bigger. It's hard to tell how old she is because she writes
with so little bitterness. I hope that The Wife might appeal to
both men and women. It is as much about the male psyche as it is
about the woman's." --Los Angeles Times "Here are three words that
land with a thunk: 'gender, ' 'writing, ' and 'identity.' Yet in
The Wife, Meg Wolitzer has fashioned a light-stepping, streamlined
novel from just these dolorous, bitter-sounding themes. Maybe
that's because she's set them all smoldering: rage might be the
signature emotion of the powerless, but in Wolitzer's hands, rage
is also very funny. . . . Wolitzer deploys a calm, seamless humor
not found in her previous novels. The jokes don't barge in and tap
us on the shoulder. Instead, they gradually accumulate, creating a
rueful, sardonic atmosphere. . . . The book represents a real step
forward for Wolitzer, and its success lies in its reticence. . . .
if The Wife is a puzzle and an entertainment, it's also a near
heartbreaking document of feminist realpolitik." --The New York
Times Book Review "Wolitzer expertly constructs this lopsided
relationship into an eviscerating and acerbically funny novel. . .
. Wolitzer keeps us guessing right up until the gut-wrenching twist
of a finale." --Entertainment Weekly "There are women in New York
City who would kill to be Joan Castleman, the narrator of
Wolitzer's frothy new comic novel. . . . [Wolitzer] paints an
urbane picture of the book world of the '50s and '60s, when male
writers would put down their pens and use their fists. Her
hilarious gripes about marriage make this tale a pleasure best
indulged in away from your better half." --People "The Wife isn't
just women's lit with feminist issues. Deft and passionate, it
raises questions about misguided aims and the deals we make with
ourselves and others to reach them." --Newsday "Meg Wolitzer's
sixth novel, The Wife, may be her boldest yet -- an exploration of
the passionate highs and divorce-threatening lows of Joan and Joe
Castleman's forty-year marriage, delivered with signature wit,
warmth, and a wise woman's eye view." --Elle ". . . a delicious
read. . . . Philip Roth and John Updike have written tales like
this, only we never hear the wife's perspective. Wolitzer creates
just the right voice for her overlooked heroine. She is at once
witty and angry, bitter and tearful. . . . it is [Wolitzer's]
understanding of marriage that makes this tale such a delicious
pleasure, to be indulged away from one's spouse." --Cleveland Plain
Dealer "The Wife speeds along, glittering all the way, equal parts
Jane Austen and Fran Lebowitz: epigrammatic, perceptive, ironic,
smart and ringing with truth. . . . [It] crackles with such
intensity that it's hard to put down even for a few hours . . .
[Wolitzer] grabs hold of that brass ring of universal experience
and takes us all along for the carousel ride." --The Buffalo News
"A triumph of tone and observation, The Wife is a blithe, brilliant
take on sexual politics and literary vanity (as well as sexual
vanity and literary politics). It is the most engaging, funny, and
satisfying novel the witty Meg Wolitzer has yet written." --Lorrie
Moore "Meg Wolitzer's sixth novel is her best--an astonishingly
dry, funny and gripping account of two writers trapped for life in
an ever-more bizarre marriage. Every detail she evokes about an era
in American literary life, from college campuses to writer's
parties, is persuasive, hilarious and even frightening, while the
indignation she registers about her heroine's predicaments is
lightened and even liberated by her perfect comic timing. The Wife
is a milestone in the career of one of her generation's truest
novelists." --Adam Gopnik "The wife of The Wife is a brilliantly
conceived character, smart and foolish, tough-minded and
weak-willed, witty and profoundly sad. And Meg Wolitzer's
observations about gender and creativity: They are not only
pointed, but penetrating. She has written some fine novels, but
this is her best yet!" --Susan Isaacs "Meg Wolitzer is so smart and
funny she should be bottled and sold over the counter. The Wife is
a complex, compelling portrait of a marriage that raises painful
issues, even as it has you howling with recognition. Why does the
better half feel she has to protect the lesser half from failure
and disappointment? What exactly is the nature of the transaction
between men and women--and who picks up the check? The Wife picks
up some of the hard questions with the lightest, most glittering of
touches." --Allison Pearson "Funny, smart, sad, gripping and
utterly surprising. Meg Wolitzer's subjects are the yin and yang of
love and hate, and the various strange and shadowy transactions at
the heart of a marriage--specifically a marriage between members of
that cohort too young to snuggle easily into the certainties of the
Greatest Generation and too old to catch feminism's wave." --Kurt
Andersen
"A rollicking, perfectly pitched triumph...Wolitzer's talent for
comedy of manners reaches a heady high." --Los Angeles Times
Joan Castelman is en route to Finland to watch her husband, renowned author Joe Castleman, win the Helsinki Prize when she decides to leave him. What follows is Joan's fascinating recollection of their marriage, his career, and her fading dreams. Telling her story in alternating segments, she starts in the 1950s with the beginning of the couple's professor-student relationship and continues through to the present, their 40 years of marriage stacking up the unspoken regrets that lead to Helsinki. This is Wolitzer's sixth novel (following Surrender, Dorothy ), and she's as sharp as ever. Her funny yet harshly bitter book features amazingly crafted prose, and the story of what Joan sacrifices to support her husband and his illustrious career is just as astounding. Complete with a staggering twist ending, this is not one to miss. For most fiction collections.-Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Los Angeles Times A rollicking, perfectly pitched triumph...Wolitzer's talent for comedy of manners reaches a heady high.
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