Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Novel About My Wife
    Unavailable
    Novel About My Wife
    Unavailable
    Novel About My Wife
    Ebook285 pages4 hours

    Novel About My Wife

    By Emily Perkins

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    When Tom moves with his wife Ann from their tiny Camden flat into a large house in Hackney, he feels as if it's the start of the rest of their life together. Deeply in love, and with a baby on the way, everything, Tom thinks, is finally coming together. He and Ann anticpate the arrival of the baby, as Ann, particularly galvanized, spends hours cleaning and reorganizing the house, and sitting up all night talking with a renewed passion about life, love, and art. But there is a darker side to this new fervour, somehow linked with her conviction that someone is lingering threateningly around their new home. Someone who - Tom soon realizes - may not exist at all.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateDec 1, 2010
    ISBN9781608196715
    Unavailable
    Novel About My Wife
    Author

    Emily Perkins

    Emily Perkins is the author of a prize-winning collection of short stories, Not Her Real Name, and four novels, including Novel About My Wife (winner of the NZ Book Award and the Believer Magazine Book of the Year, The Forrests (longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction) and Lioness (shortlisted for the Ockham NZ Prize for Fiction). Her work for stage and screen includes co-writing the film adaptation of Eleanor Catton's novel The Rehearsal (dir. Alison Maclean), an adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House, and the original play The Made. She lives in New Zealand.

    Related to Novel About My Wife

    Related ebooks

    Historical Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2022

      If I call myself unlovable, I am, practically; if I say itenough times: unlovable. Then, like practical magic, I’m hollow as old garlic; I’m distance-skinned.I’m a long, mean package, a terror-dyke, a nag, a squinting, slut-spun hag—it’s easy, really

      5 min read

    • Article

      Nothing To Fear

      Jan 26, 2021

      Nothing To Fear
      8 min read

    • Article

      At The Bend Of The Road

      Jul 20, 2021

      At The Bend Of The Road
      18 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      Dear C, At first Virgil’s poem is quite dull; equivocalnames of products at The Container Store: Elfa White Medium Drawer, Mesh NarrowRolling Cart (Medium Solution), Narrow Classic Mesh Box and the number of pirouetting starseach product attained. An

      5 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      All Of Us Here

      Jun 4, 2020

      All Of Us Here
      6 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      Sweet Fantasy

      Nov 20, 2021

      Sweet Fantasy
      8 min read

    • Article

      In the Prison of Your Skin

      Feb 1, 2019

      In the Prison of Your Skin
      11 min read

    • Article

      Pickpocket

      Jun 1, 2020

      Pickpocket
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Plagues Steph Cha

      Sep 29, 2020

      The Plagues Steph Cha
      9 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Plague Legends

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Plague Legends
      12 min read

    • Article

      Cherubs

      Jul 5, 2023

      Cherubs
      10 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Jul 1, 2018

      When I said, to my mother, What was a goodthing about me as a child?, my mother’sface seemed to unfurl from the center,hibiscus in fast motion, the anthersand flounces springing out with joy. Oh you wereenchanting, she breathed. What do you mean—craz

      5 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Corridor Stories

      Sep 1, 2022

      The Corridor Stories
      5 min read

    • Article

      Sexual Tension

      Jun 5, 2023

      Sexual Tension
      13 min read

    • Article

      Poets

      Dec 1, 2020

      Poets
      19 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Novel About My Wife

    3.5/5

    71 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This was a rather strange book. First of all, there are no chapters. About the only breaks are excerpts from a diary about a trip to Fiji. Secondly, it's never clear if this diary is by Anne (the wife) or by Tom (the husband). Fiji is where they got married, on the spur of the moment while Tom was supposed to be working on a script for an Australian director, Haliburton. The bulk of the book is by Tom, written after Anne died. He tells the story of their last year together while Anne was pregnant. While it is obvious Anne died until the very end the cause of her death is not apparent. Thirdly, even when you know the cause of her death (by suicide) it is not clear what her exact impetus was. It seems to be tied to Haliburton because he knew of her (or maybe knew her) when Anne was growing up in Sydney. Or maybe Anne is just mentally ill (I don't mean to minimize mental illness by that comment just indicate that the cause of suicide often is mental illness) because she sees insects and a dangerous man when no-one else does. Possibly she was suffering from post-partum depression or acid flashbacks. There is just no neat explanation of her death. Maybe that was the point but if so, I think it could have been handled better.I don't think that Emily Perkins was particularly convincing writing as a man. Unlike Clara Callan which was written by Richard Wright, I kept finding that Tom's actions seemed bizarre. He just stands beside a gate while a gang of boys swarm over it and let them mug him. I don't know of many men who wouldn't either take off or fight back in that situation. He agonizes about not having any money and then goes on a holiday to Cornwall and commits a number of other frivolous expenses. I just never really believed Tom and since virtually all of the book is in his voice that leaves a big hole.
    • 5/5
      Compelling, well-written, and achingly sad. (I'm currently reading Nabokov's Timofey Pnin as a comic antidote to pull me out of the funk after reading this.) Written from the perspective of a man whose wife has died, you slowly learn the details leading to her death. Makes me wonder about the solidity of our relationships, and how well we know people in our lives. I want to read more by Perkins, but my public libraries carry hardly any of her books...
    • 2/5
      A friend lent me this book and I thought it was wierd - and not in a good way ! Too unbelievable and a bit simple I thought , psycho wife sets up her own fake death to set her husband up ! and the ending is terrible!
    • 4/5
      I found this a compulsive read and loved it. While not quite a thriller it is a chilling psychological drama that is impossible to put down. Scary, smart and funny. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Compelling, well-written, and achingly sad. (I'm currently reading Nabokov's Timofey Pnin as a comic antidote to pull me out of the funk after reading this.) Written from the perspective of a man whose wife has died, you slowly learn the details leading to her death. Makes me wonder about the solidity of our relationships, and how well we know people in our lives. I want to read more by Perkins, but my public libraries carry hardly any of her books...
    • 4/5
      Loved the language Perkins used - the beginning paragraph is absolutely beautiful and evokes a real sense of loss and love for Tom's late wife.I would have preferred a few things to be made a little clearer by the end - several parts are left as loose ends, causing me to flip back through the book to check I hadn't missed anything.
    • 4/5
      Spooky and dark and impending doom the entire time.Tom Stone is madly in love with his wife Ann. They have recently bought a house in up and coming Hackney, London even though Tom is a failing screenwriter, and Ann has a part time job in a hospital in London. However, they need more space as Ann is soon to be having their first child.I loved that that the book is told from Tom's perspective (and that the book is written by the talented Emily Perkins) and from the opening page, we know that Ann is dead.However, it is all a little murky -- sort of like the entire novel is written with an opaque cloth around it. Much is left unsaid and unexplained.I found the prose to be well-written, tight and well developed character study of a couple's life which is slowly falling apart.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book I have read by this author and I have to admit I only picked it up because of the very striking cover photograph. However I am very glad that I did because the story is excellent, well-written, thought-provoking and compelling right to the end.It is not, however, a feel-good book. It has a gloom and and air of desperation cast over the story right from the start and although I would like to re-read this book it isn't one to read while you are feeling down and could bring you down even if you were quite cheerful when you started it.Australian Ann Wells and her partner Tom Stone are expecting their first child together. However Tom has just lost his job and they have bought a house in preparation for the baby coming. Their mounting debts are scary enough but there are mysterious problems with the house, infestations of insects and vermin, Ann is involved in a serious accident and is being stalked by a homeless man. There is a mugging and a roadrage attack. There is mystery about the way Tom lost his job and Tom himself, as the narrator of the story, tells us a devestating fact about Ann right at the start of the story.The confusion continues right through the book and as a reader I was left hazy about details that Tom is well aware of but chooses not to explain. It is a well written story, planned and well thought out and the confusion that remains is fully intended by the author.I will re-read this book and think it is the sort of book that might have more to reveal on a second read. I would cautiously recommend it but warn you that it is hard going in parts because of the tone of the story.