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Maybe it was the five pounds I’d gained that I couldn’t seem to lose. 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.
7. 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.
61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.
67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have.
32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.
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.
Reviews
“Wife 22” channels the playful but incisive vibe of Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail. Like Ephron, Gideon is especially adept at puncturing contemporary vanities. In the crowded pool of novels about midlife crises, “Wife 22” has the buoyancy of water wings.
–USA TODAY
“Poignant and fresh, Wife 22 is an lol Instagram about love in a wired world.”
–People Magazine
“This modern-day, mixed media comedy of manners is as up to the minute as your favorite Twitter post.”
–Washington Post
“A skillful blend of pop-culture references, acidic humor and emotional moments. It will take its rightful place . . . alongside Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones Diary . . . and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It.”
–Library Journal Starred Review
“Wife 22 is a delightful, thoroughly modern, guilty pleasure of a read. That Gideon can take all-too-familiar elements and craft them into something fresh and funny is a tribute to the humor and imagination she brings to the telling of the tale.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
“In her superb first novel, Gideon artfully traces the contours of a dull marriage in the age of Facebook. . . Gideon’s work is an honest assessment of a woman’s struggle to reconcile herself with her desires and responsibilities, as well as a timely treatise on the anonymity and intimacy afforded by digital communiques. Fully formed supporting characters and a nuanced emotional story line make Gideon’s fiction debut shimmer.”
–Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“Vibrant, au courant, and hilarious . . . brilliant. ”
-Adriana Trigiani
“I loved it, loved it, loved it. It’s so funny and true and sad and real and clever and of-the-moment. Also so hopeful and wise and ultimately heartwarming.”
—Marian Keyes
“Wife 22 is not just clever. It is a funny, wise and ultimately tender and revealing portrait of modern family life.”
-Mary Kay Andrews
“Refreshing, original and crackling with energy, Wife 22 is a brilliant, engrossing novel about the way we live and love now. Prepare to be dazzled.”
-Elin Hilderbrand
“Wildly inventive . . . Wife 22 is wise in the matters of the heart. Melanie Gideon could put marriage counselors out of business.”
-Elizabeth Berg