"The five marriages that Carmela Ciuraru explores in Lives of the
Wives provide such delightfully gossipy pleasure that we have to
remind ourselves that these were real people whose often stormy
relationships must surely have been less fun to experience than
they are for us to read about."-Francine Prose, author of The Vixen
A witty, provocative look inside the tumultuous marriages of five
writers, illuminating the creative process as well as the role of
money, power, and fame in these complex and fascinating
relationships. "With an ego the size of a small nation, the
literary lion is powerful on the page, but a helpless kitten in
daily life-dependent on his wife to fold an umbrella, answer the
phone, or lick a stamp." The history of wives is largely one of
silence, resilience, and forbearance. Toss in celebrity, male
privilege, ruthless ambition, narcissism, misogyny, infidelity,
alcoholism, and a mood disorder or two, and it's easy to understand
why the marriages of so many famous writers have been stormy,
short-lived, and mutually destructive. "It's been my experience,"
as the critic and novelist Elizabeth Hardwick once wrote, "that
nobody holds a man's brutality to his wife against him." Literary
wives are a unique breed, requiring a particular kind of fortitude.
Author Carmela Ciuraru shares the stories of five literary
marriages, exposing the misery behind closed doors. The legendary
British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan encouraged his American wife,
Elaine Dundy, to write, then watched in a jealous rage as she
became a bestselling author and critical success. In the early
years of their marriage, Roald Dahl enjoyed basking in the glow of
his glamorous movie star wife, Patricia Neal, until he detested her
for being the breadwinner, and being more famous than he was.
Elizabeth Jane Howard had to divorce Kingsley Amis to escape his
suffocating needs and devote herself to her own writing. ("I really
couldn't write very much when I was married to him," she once
recalled, "because I had a very large household to keep up and
Kingsley wasn't one to boil an egg, if you know what I mean.")
Surprisingly, the most traditional partnership in Lives of the
Wives is a lesbian couple, Una Troubridge and Radclyffe Hall, both
of whom were socially and politically conservative and unapologetic
snobs. As this erudite and entertaining work shows, each marriage
is a unique story, filled with struggles and triumphs and the
negotiation of power. The Italian novelists Elsa Morante and
Alberto Moravia were never sexually compatible, and it was Morante
who often behaved abusively toward her cool, detached husband, even
as he unwaveringly admired his wife's talents and championed her
work. Theirs was an unhappy union, yet it fueled them creatively
and enabled both to become two of Italy's most important postwar
writers. These are stories of vulnerability, loneliness,
infidelity, envy, sorrow, abandonment, heartbreak, and forgiveness.
Above all, Lives of the Wives honors the women who have played the
role of muses, agents, editors, proofreaders, housekeepers,
gatekeepers, amaneunses, confidantes, and cheerleaders to literary
trailblazers throughout history. In revisiting the lives of famous
writers, it is time in our #MeToo era to highlight the achievements
of their wives-and the price these women paid for recognition and
freedom. Lives of the Wives is an insightful, humorous, and
poignant exploration of the intersection of life and art and
creativity and love.
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