(Translated from French by Emma Ramadan)
Loved it! Hated it! Loved it!
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This book chronicles a week in the life of a woman who is obsessively in love with her husband. They have been together 15 years, married 13 years, and have two children. In the prologue, the husband says, “We need to find a moment to talk…It’s important.” She is frozen and unable to say a word. She thinks he will tell her their marriage is over!
The book then jumps back to six days earlier, a Monday. As she recounts the week, day by day, we march toward his frightening pronouncement, and we learn a lot about her and their marriage – all of it entirely from her point of view. Though she interacts with people in the book, most of the action takes place inside her head as she processes those interactions.
I both listened to this book on tape and read it. As I started off listening to it, it was very lyrical. Others might say this about writing, but it’s not a comment I ordinarily make. In this case, though, the words somehow flowed. I was eager to look at the written page to see how those words were presented. The author often gave lists of things about her feelings. Were those listed as bullet points? Did they run together breathlessly between commas? I needed to see. Another reviewer called this style “staccato.” If you stay tuned an example will soon follow.
So at first, I was really taken by the writing. By the cadence of the writing. I started off completely enamored. But before too long, I started to feel claustrophobic. The entire book takes place within the woman’s head! And she gets hung up – very hung up – over small things.
As an example of a small thing that she takes over the top – and as an example of the writing – this quote describes a game the husband and wife play at a friend’s house. Players need to use a fruit to describe another person’s personality. The husband likens his friend’s wife to a pineapple. He likens his own wife to a clementine. Here are her thoughts:
“For Louise, my husband chooses a pineapple. Right in front of me, he associates his best friend’s wife with a summery, exotic fruit, acidic and ample. He associates her with Latin America and implies, I’m convinced, that he is intrigued by the juicy flesh of that tropical plant.
So my husband thinks his best friend is married to a pineapple while he married a clementine. He lives with a winter fruit, a banal and cheap fruit, a supermarket fruit. A small, ordinary fruit that has none of the indulgences of the orange nor the originality of the grapefruit. A fruit organized into segments, practical and easy to eat, precut, ready for use, proffered in its casing.”
In itself, this reaction is over the top, and made me start to think she was not quite right in the head. But when she thinks about that clementine dozens of times after that evening – and the reader has to read about the damn clementine so many more times – that’s when I started to feel she was completely unhinged!
Honestly, except that it’s a short book – 260 pages – and I was nearing the end, I might have given up on the crazy wife and the crazy book. But I am glad I did not.
Something happens towards the end that changes everything! It turns the novel into a disturbing book that I will think about for a long time.
Bottom line: I loved it! Then I hated it! Then I loved it again!
What have others thought about the book? According to the publisher, HarperCollins, the book was the winner of Frances’ First Novel Prize. It was named Best Book of the Year by Amazon UK. It was also named a “Best Book of Summer” by Vogue, theSkimm, Oprah Daily, and The Millions.
Here is a final, interesting tidbit: The author is 29-years-old and she began writing this novel while she was deeply in love with her boyfriend. But the relationship did not last! She finished writing it after he dumped her. Perhaps this experience helps to explain a thing or two about the book. Read it and see what you think!
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