The Good Husband (Paperback)
$18.69
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Staff Reviews
I have been reading Gail Godwin novels for forty years and anxiously anticipate each new world. I rank this title in my top ten all time reads. This was the first selection in my initial book club participation. I won multiple copies of this novel for lending purposes. I always appreciate campus or collegiate settings for novels because the characters are usually portrayed as informed and open minded. All the characters in this tale are as vivid to me as when i first read it more than twenty years ago. Give yourself over to the grace of these people.
— benDescription
"[A] BRILLIANT, WITTY AND PROVOCATIVE NEW NOVEL."
--San Francisco Chronicle
As a young woman, the brilliant and eternally curious Magda Danvers took the academic world by storm. Then, to everyone's surprise, she married Francis Lake, a mild, midwestern seminarian, who has devoted his life to taking care of his charismatic wife. Now, Magda's grave illness puts their marriage to its ultimate test.
Though facing her "Final Examination," Magda continues to arouse her visitors with compelling thoughts and questions. Into this provocative atmosphere comes Alice Henry, retreating from family tragedy and a crumbling marriage to novelist Hugo Henry. But is it the incandescence of Magda's ideas that draws Alice, or the secret of "the good marriage" that she is desperate to discover? For Alice, Hugo, Francis, and Magda will learn that the most ideal relationship--even a perfect marriage--doesn't come without a price....
"COMPELLING WRITING...REMARKABLY SKILLFUL...Gail Godwin shows herself to be at the height of her considerable power as a storyteller and a writer."
--The Boston Globe
"ONE OF HER FINEST BOOKS...It is not only a well-written story, but a mature and wise one, affirmative in its vision of love, unblinking in its portrayal of tragic loss."
--Atlanta Journal & Constitution
"FASCINATING...[A] BIG SUMPTUOUS BOOK...HER BEST NOVEL."
--Entertainment Weekly
"A BRILLIANTLY CRAFTED NOVEL, full of fun and mischief and resonating with wisdom and moral depth."
--New Woman
A Featured Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club
About the Author
Gail Godwin is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the bestselling author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including A Mother and Two Daughters, Violet Clay, Father Melancholy’s Daughter, Evensong, The Good Husband, Queen of the Underworld, and Unfinished Desires. She is also the author of The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961–1963 and The Making of a Writer, Volume 2: Journals, 1963–1969, edited by Rob Neufeld. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has written libretti for ten musical works with the composer Robert Starer. Gail Godwin lives in Woodstock, New York.