Ex-Wife
Ratings5
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings5
Average rating4.3
An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929—the story of a divorce and its aftermath, which scandalized the Jazz Age. It's 1924, and Peter and Patricia have what looks to be a very modern marriage. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work, Patricia as a head copywriter at a major department store. When it comes to sex with other people, both believe in “the honesty policy.” Until they don‘t. Or, at least, until Peter doesn‘t—and a shell-shocked, lovesick Patricia finds herself starting out all over again, but this time around as a different kind of single woman: the ex-wife. An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, Ex-Wife captures the speakeasies, night clubs, and parties that defined Jazz Age New York—alongside the morning-after aspirin and calisthenics, the lunch-hour visits to the gym, the girl-talk, and the freedoms and anguish of solitude. It also casts a cool eye on the bedrooms and the doctor’s offices where, despite rising hemlines, the men still call the shots. The result is a unique view of what its author Ursula Parrott called “the era of the one-night stand”: an era very much like our own.
Reviews with the most likes.
Man, I love everything about this book.
There's a line in Parrott's son's afterword that I misread - well not misread, but mistook what he meant - that people drink in Ex-Wife. He meant literally (there's so much drinking), but I mean it in that I just drank this in. It reads so easy and is so real. I loved watching Pat grow over the course of the book. Her loves and losses are just so well done.
Pat's story (and apparently a lot of Ursula's) reminded me of bits of Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, but then it turns into something else. It's like The Best of Everything in the nightlife and friendships. Add in some of the feel of Gatsby.
I figured I'd like this since it ticks off so many of my boxes, but man did I love it. And maybe I'm just in an emotional state, but the second to last chapter had me tearing up. It's all so good.
I don’t remember how this book arrived in my pile but it was a great read! I’m surprised because it’s quite old now but stays still so relevant about many parts especially the impact of divorce on one’s life’s.
Its depiction of New York of the 20s is bright and filled with a lot of alcohol consumption, but each character is really rich and you get deeply attached to Patricia and the way she handles her life.
Wow! What an intriguing book. I was expecting to be entertained by it, but not in the way it actually delivered. This book reads easily and yet has a way to make you think deeply at times. It is an enjoyable account of an era that saw the changing landscape of women and men and the attitudes of sex and marriage.
Contains spoilers
Besides the pounding misogyny, the most salient aspect is the forced disproportionate gravity of literal adolescent relationships when you marry the first person you want to ‘bun’. Negging and body commentary is standard on all fronts. Surprisingly not full-on racist, just a bit escaped. Feminist is a slur. Soap opera turns. The correspondence between the protagonist and her great love in her supposed mature phase at 27 is unflattering. I appreciated the supportive friendships and the confronting of wearying subjects that endure, lack of safe access to abortion, the debts that are considered owed for male attention. One of her closest friends, her asexual future husband who inherits millions, explains her appeal to him: “I don’t think about you as female. You’re decorative, like a well-bred young collie pup… and besides you laugh at things and like to look at pictures.” It’s a record of a side of New York in 1929.
