Wife 22 - Melanie Gideon (2012)

Alice Buckle fears she has become more roommates than lovers with her husband William when she agrees to do an anonymous online survey about their 20-year marriage. The survey delves into how they met - he was her boss and was dating another colleague; his irritations - pee on the bathroom floor and jeans inside-out in the laundry basket; and the effects of parenthood - she fears her daughter Hannah has an eating disorder and thinks son Peter is gay. And soon the self-deprecating Wife 22 - as she is known - finds it easier opening up to a stranger - her Researcher 101 - than communicating with her own husband. This takes an unusual writing format, including survey answers (the questions are at the back of the book); Google searches, Facebook updates and play scripts of events. My only disappointment was working out less than halfway through the reference that gives away the ending. But this is still a terrific book, with a protagonist you'll feel like friending on Facebook. A very promising debut.

Wife 22, the debut novel from Melanie Gideon, is about a woman who agrees to anonymously participate in a survey about marital happiness, only to experience a reawakening through the power of confession. The summary says: "Maybe it was my droopy eyelids. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other. But when the anonymous online study called "Marriage in the 21st Century" showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn't long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101). And, just like that, I found myself answering questions like Sometimes I tell him he's snoring when he's not snoring so he'll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself. Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor's appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions. But these days, I'm also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I'll have to make a decision - one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I'm too busy answering questions. As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac." Gideon is the author of memoir The Slippery Year. Wife 22 is out in May, and has already been optioned for a film by Working Title.

Back to Home