The Wife's Tale

The Wife's Tale

by Lori Lansens (Author)

Synopsis

On the eve of her wedding anniversary, Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband to come home, listening for his car along the dark, icy roads. As the night draws on, and he fails to appear, Mary reflects on the true nature of their marriage: the secrets, the silences, and the unmentionable yet inescapable fact that for each loss and disappointment, there has been a corresponding physical gain: the woman she once was is now imprisoned in mountainous flesh. THE WIFE'S TALE is the inspirational story of the journey Mary is finally forced to make across a continent, ostensibly in search of her husband, but eventually towards the self she has buried for too long.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 384
Publisher: Virago Press Ltd
Published: 04 Feb 2010

ISBN 10: 184408616X
ISBN 13: 9781844086160

Media Reviews
A sensitive but deliciously comic account of Mary's fight against the obeast that has lived inside her since childhood, The Wife's Tale offers more than self--improvement: there are loving reflections on marriage and family in small-town Ontario, hilarious travelogues about American obsessions like McMansions and vanity license plates, and a tender documentary of the improbable compassion of strangers for fellow travelers. Of course, there's plenty of self-discovery too.... Lansens has more than a few tales worth telling. -- New York Times Sunday Book Review Casey Cep
Lansens's hopeful and gentle third novel (after The Girls ), opens in the same fictitious Ontario county as its predecessors, but the heroine's journey takes her to a vastly different landscape, both literally and spiritually... Mary Gooch's [is] a wonderful character, and Lansens's handling of her eventual transformation into someone capable of compassion and acceptance is handled with a light but assured touch. -- Publishers Weekly
Lansens' clear prose unveils the connection between a body weighed down by flesh and a spirit smothered by loneliness. Mary's odyssey of heartache and hope is not so much about finding her husband as it is about rediscovering herself. -- People
Lansens--who lived so memorably inside the heads of conjoined twins Ruby and Rose in The Girls --sketches another indelible female character here. Mary Gooch... [is] original... heartbreakingly funny and sad. -- Entertainment Weekly
Author Bio
Lori Lansens was born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, and is now a screenwriter. RUSH HOME ROAD, her first novel, was the subject of major international activity, and THE GIRLS was a Richard and Judy pick.