Novel About My Wife

by Emily Perkins.

Quickie Recap: Upon losing his wife, a man sets out to remember her and discovers that she was perhaps unknowable.

Quickie Review: This book made me a bit melancholy. It made me wonder if we can ever really know anyone. It also made me wonder if I I can ever really know this book. There were entire sections that left me puzzled. Sure, I got the gist, but I also often felt like I was missing something. A few times I flipped pages backwards just to see if I'd missed a passage or something. The main character is dead so we can never set the record straight, which is a clever device, but I was frustrated by the narrator who was just plain clueless. I felt like I was left hanging a lot and it cut into my enjoyment of the book. Otherwise, this is exactly the kind of thing I treasure - the darkness, the mystery, the unfolding of a person over time. I just wish that when I got to the end, I felt like I had known her just a bit.

Quickie Recommendation: Not fabulous, not futile.