The Wife's Tale: A Novel - Hardcover

Unusual book

"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