Wife

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'Crackles with female fire and fury' - The Guardian 'A bravura portrait of a marriage in meltdown' - The Observer 'Fast and furious' - The Sunday Times Discover the bitingly witty new novel from the prize-winning author of The Exhibitionist, Charlotte Mendelson. Dr Penny Cartwright is everything that Zoe Stamper is not: glamorous, sophisticated and openly gay. When they begin a passionate affair, a lifetime of wedded bliss seems within Zoe's grasp. But this is not a love story. It's the story of how love can bring about disaster . . . 'A terrific panic attack of a novel' - i newspaper 'Lacerating' - Financial Times 'Unbearably brilliant' - Nigella Lawson 'A gift to the reader . . . Irresistible' - Amy Bloom, bestselling author of In Love 'Compelling' - Glamour 'Truly radical' - The Spectator

Reviews

A brilliant and blackly comic study of narcissistic dysfunction . . . Gimlet-eyed, sharp-tongued, blisteringly precise, it crackles with female fire and fury * The Guardian *
A family saga of great insight, with another magnificently grotesque villain at its heart * The Observer *
'This is a love story,' Zoe tells the reader, and it is, profoundly so, in the end. But I'll remember it more as a thriller, for the way Mendelson manages to make what looks from the outside like a sad but unremarkable day packing, Tube journeys feel like sweaty offcuts from The Bourne Identity . . . God, you want Zoe to get away. Does she Better read the book. * The Sunday Times *
Poleaxed after finishing this. Charlotte Mendelson at her soul-searing best. Narcissistic monsters and suffocating families are quite the specialty of hers, but Wife is just unbearably brilliant -- Nigella Lawson, bestselling author of Cook, Eat, Repeat
Wife is a gift to the reader in its gimlet-eyed and heartfelt observations, its irresistible sentences and its compassionate, sometimes surgical storytelling. Charlotte Mendelson tells the truth: slant, suspect, hidden, hard and often hilarious -- Amy Bloom, bestselling author of In Love
A clever, lacerating account of coercive control . . . a finely executed novel * Financial Times *
A deeply engaging exploration of a troubling and passionate affair, motherhood and personal transformation . . . Mendelson's vibrant characters and richly detailed narrative provide a captivating look at the complexities of love and self-discovery. Compelling. * Glamour *
Mendelson is an extraordinary writer . . . Her characters are whole and complex, her tone crisp and familiar, her prose uncluttered and full of delightfully bitchy moments * Evening Standard *
Mendelson revels in the messiness of familial relationships, especially the ugly dramas that take place behind closed doors * TLS *
A terrific panic attack of a novel, a domestic horror story . . . Mendelson's particular triumph is that this story is perversely, incredibly enjoyable, the kind of book to be wolfed down in a single excruciating sitting * i *
The heart of this novel is how Mendelson portrays, with some comedy alongside the horror, the disintegration of a marriage. The claustrophobic bullying is so well done that I found it nauseating . . . Truly radical * The Spectator *

Author Bio

Charlotte Mendelson's previous novel, The Exhibitionist, was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and was Novel of the Year 2022 in The Times as well as a book of the year in The Guardian and Good Housekeeping. Her other novels include Almost English, which was longlisted for both the Man Booker and the Women's Prize for Fiction; When We Were Bad, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and was a book of the year in The Observer, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New Statesman and The Spectator; Daughters of Jerusalem, which won both the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize; and Love in Idleness. Wife is her sixth novel.