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Wife

Synopsis

'Crackles with female fire and fury' – The Guardian
'A bravura portrait of a marriage in meltdown' – The Observer

'Fast and furious' – The Sunday Times

Wife, the gripping novel from the prize-winning author of The Exhibitionist, is a nail-biting portrait of the beginning – and the end – of a rollercoaster marriage.

When Zoe Stamper first catches the eye of the sophisticated Dr Penny Cartwright, she thinks her life has changed for the better. Entering into a relationship with an older woman introduces Zoe to a world she previously thought unreachable. Their love story begins.

Now married with two children, Zoe is sick of living a lie. On the outside she's a loving and beloved wife, but inside she's a nervous wreck. She knows she must escape this secret darkness, but how?

Moving between the beginning and the end of Zoe's marriage, Wife brilliantly conveys the horror, humour and suspense of a midlife bid for freedom.

'A terrific panic attack of a novel' – i newspaper
'Lacerating' – Financial Times
'Unbearably brilliant' – Nigella Lawson
'A gift to the reader . . . Irresistible' – Amy Bloom, bestselling author of In Love
'Compelling' – Glamour
'Truly radical' – The Spectator

Details

01 May 2025
384 pages
9781529052831
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

Poleaxed after finishing this. Charlotte Mendelson at her soul-searing best. Narcissistic monsters and suffocating families are quite the specialty of hers, but Wife is just unbearably brilliantNigella Lawson, bestselling author of Cook, Eat, Repeat
Wife is a gift to the reader in its gimlet-eyed and heartfelt observations, its irresistible sentences and its compassionate, sometimes surgical storytelling. Charlotte Mendelson tells the truth: slant, suspect, hidden, hard – and often hilariousAmy Bloom, bestselling author of In Love
A brilliant and blackly comic study of narcissistic dysfunction . . . Gimlet-eyed, sharp-tongued, blisteringly precise, it crackles with female fire and furyThe Guardian, The Guardian
A family saga of great insight, with another magnificently grotesque villain at its heartThe Observer, The Observer