Love and devotion...

The Good Wife
by Stewart O'Nan

We are, by our nature, immersed in our own little corner of our culture. We tend to have little interest in or sympathy for other areas of that culture.

In The Good Wife Stewart O'Nan attempts to take us into another area, one that most of us want nothing to do with.

It is a cold night in a small town in New York. Patty is pregnant. Her husband is out playing hockey in the local amateur league. After the games, the guys go out and have a few drinks, so Patty doesn't expect to see her husband until quite late. Waiting, she falls asleep. Way after midnight the phone wakes her. It is her husband. He's in jail. Something's happened that involves a break-in, a dead woman and other things.

What follows is a remarkable chronicle, spanning over two decades, of love and self sacrifice. One of my female friends said the book should be titled The Stupid Wife. I disagree. Patty exemplifies the sort of loyalty and devotion that too rarely manifests itself in our times.

And her ordeal gives us a rare insight into what it's like to be married to or involved with a long-term prison inmate. Not a pretty picture.

Stewart O'Nan