A new novel from the author of The Exhibitionist is a family saga of rare insight, with another magnificently grotesque villain at its heart
Charlotte Mendelson is among the greatest villain-creators of contemporary fiction, most recently bringing us the loathsome and tyrannical artist Ray Hanrahan, under whose scattergun rage his equally-if-not-more talented wife and their children cowered in The Exhibitionist. Narcissism is Mendelson’s subject, and the nooks and crannies of domestic and familial life that provide the ideal environment for it to root and flourish.
Wife, her sixth novel, provides us with a grotesque to rival Ray in the form of Penny, an expat Australian academic whose younger wife, Zoe, is attempting to escape during the course of a single day. A bolthole organised by the novel’s hero, their neighbour Dawn, all emergency fags and bolstering talk of support forums and red flags, stands waiting; but first Zoe must navigate Penny’s desperate last-ditch attempts to prevent her departure – a note reading “YOU ARE A MONSTER” taped to a rabbit’s litter tray – and, somewhat late in the day, a booby-trapped mediation session.
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