Overview
On a clear winter night in upstate New York, two young men break in to a house. Within minutes, an old woman is dead and the house is in flames. Across the country, Patty Dickerson's phone rings. It's her husband. He wants her to know that he and his friend have gotten themselves into a little trouble. So Patty's old life ends and a strange new one begins. For the next twenty-eight years, she must live with the absence caused by her husband's incarceration, attempt to raise her son, and brave the scorn of her community. As unflinching as it is heartrending, The Good Wife confirms O'Nan's place as one of our country's most wide-ranging and empathetic masters.
Synopsis
On a clear winter night in upstate New York, two young men break in to a house. Within minutes, an old woman is dead and the house is in flames. Across the country, Patty Dickerson's phone rings. It's her husband. He wants her to know that he and his friend have gotten themselves into a little trouble. So Patty's old life ends and a strange new one begins. For the next twenty-eight years, she must live with the absence caused by her husband's incarceration, attempt to raise her son, and brave the scorn of her community. As unflinching as it is heartrending, The Good Wife confirms O'Nan's place as one of our country's most wide-ranging and empathetic masters.
The Washington Post - Meg Wolitzer
Like Evan S. Connell's classic 1959 novel Mrs. Bridge, Stewart O'Nan's The Good Wife is the story of an ordinary woman's life over a great sweep of time. Connell used short bulletin-like chapters to create a complete vision of his character's circumstances and limitations; O'Nan's chapters tend to be a little longer, but the effect is similar. The accretion of quotidian detail gives us a kind of timeline of the life of Patty Dickerson, a woman whose husband, Tommy, commits a crime while drunk at the beginning of the novel and ends up spending the remainder of it -- 28 years -- in jail for murder. Also like Mrs. Bridge, The Good Wife is powerful, unforgettable.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"One of the most authentic contemporary political novels I've read by an American writer. . . . [O'Nan] creates a mood so intense that, as long as the novel lasts, the reader can't escape it."—Nell Freudenberger, The New York Times Book Review"The Good Wife is powerful, unforgettable. . . . O'Nan knows what Evan S. Connell knew . . . that an unassuming woman might be surprisingly complicated . . . .Patty Dickerson is a wonderful character, and this novel is astonishing."—The Washington Post Book World
"A moving, lyrical, assured piece of work . . . O'Nan is an experienced explorer of the irrationalities of being human."—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Meg Wolitzer
Like Evan S. Connell's classic 1959 novel Mrs. Bridge, Stewart O'Nan's The Good Wife is the story of an ordinary woman's life over a great sweep of time. Connell used short bulletin-like chapters to create a complete vision of his character's circumstances and limitations; O'Nan's chapters tend to be a little longer, but the effect is similar. The accretion of quotidian detail gives us a kind of timeline of the life of Patty Dickerson, a woman whose husband, Tommy, commits a crime while drunk at the beginning of the novel and ends up spending the remainder of it -- 28 years -- in jail for murder. Also like Mrs. Bridge, The Good Wife is powerful, unforgettable.— The Washington Post