Husband and Wife
Leah Stewart, 2011
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061774478
Summary
In this new novel by the celebrated author of The Myth of You and Me, a young mother discovers that her husband's novel about infidelity might be drawn from real life.
Sarah Price is thirty-five years old. She doesn't feel as though she's getting older, but there are some noticeable changes: a hangover after two beers, the stray gray hair, and, most of all, she's called “Mom” by two small children. Always responsible, Sarah traded her MFA for a steady job, which allows her husband, Nathan, to write fiction. But Sarah is happy and she believes Nathan is too, until a truth is revealed: Nathan's upcoming novel, Infidelity, is based in fact.
Suddenly Sarah's world is turned upside down. Adding to her confusion, Nathan abdicates responsibility for the fate of their relationship and of his novel's publication—a financial lifesaver they have been depending upon—leaving both in Sarah's hands. Reeling from his betrayal, she is plagued by dark questions. How well does she really know Nathan? And, more important, how well does she know herself?
For answers, Sarah looks back to her artistic twenty-something self to try to understand what happened to her dreams. When did it all seem to change? Pushed from her complacent plateau, Sarah begins to act—for the first time not so responsibly—on all the things she has let go of for so long: her blank computer screen; her best friend, Helen; the volumes of Proust on her bookshelf. And then there is that e-mail in her inbox: a note from Rajiv, a beautiful man from her past who once tempted her to stray. The struggle to find which version of herself is the essential one—artist, wife, or mother—takes Sarah hundreds of miles away from her marriage on a surprising journey.
Wise, funny, and sharply drawn, Leah Stewart's Husband and Wife probes our deepest relationships, the promises we make and break, and the consequences they hold for our lives, revealing that it's never too late to step back and start over perfect place to raise children: it has the proverbial good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. It’s the kind of place where parents are involved in their children’s lives–coaching sports. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, USA
• Raised—Virginia, Idaho, Kansas, New Mexico (USA); England, UK
• Education—B.A., Vanderbilt University; M.F.A., University of
Michigan
• Awards—National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
• Currently—lives in Cincinnati, Ohio
Leah Stewart was born in 1973 at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, where her father was stationed. As a child, she lived in Virginia, Idaho, England, Kansas, and Virginia again. She went to high school in Clovis, New Mexico, a town featured in her second novel, The Myth of You and Me. She always wanted to be a writer, as evidenced by her college application essay.
At Vanderbilt University Leah was the editor of the student newspaper, the Vanderbilt Hustler, and spent summers interning for the Tennessean in Nashville and the Commercial Appeal in Memphis. The latter experience inspired her first novel, Body of a Girl. After college, Leah went to the MFA program at the University of Michigan, and then moved to Boston, where she put her master’s degree to work by taking a job as a secretary for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She had an office with a door, and she wrote most of her first novel there.
Since then, Leah has worked as a secretary at Duke, a cataloguer in a used bookstore, a magazine editor, a copyeditor, and a staff member at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She has been a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, Sewanee, and Murray State University. The recipient of a 2010 NEA Literature Fellowship, Leah teaches in the University of Cincinnati’s creative writing program, and lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two children. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Some confessions are better left unuttered, as Sarah Price learns in Stewart's (The Myth of You and Me) solid latest. When novelist Nathan Bennett confesses to his wife, Sarah, right before a friend's wedding that he slept with another woman (his novel is titled Infidelity), Sarah's concerns shift from whether the dress she plans to wear to the wedding makes her look fat to what she will do about her future and that of their two young children, Mattie and Binx. What follows is an unflinching look at what happens when one's identity is shattered, and “what-ifs” and past choices come back to haunt the present. Chief among these what-ifs: Rajiv, an old friend nursing a long-unrequited crush on Sarah, and Sarah's longing to be seen once again as a poet. Stewart's graceful prose and easy storytelling pull the reader into caring about what happens to the struggling heroine while exploring the many gray areas of life and marriage. The conclusion, while true to Sarah, is surprising but not unrealistic.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Stewart (The Myth of You and Me) creates a crisis of faith where adult reality collides with youthful dreams, “the people we were and the people…we always thought we should be.” The writing is tactile, elemental, even comical, providing readers with a situation that could so easily be their own. Highly recommended. —Bette-Lee Fox
Library Journal
Heartbreaking and darkly humorous.... [Stewart] is an acute social observer..
BookPage
Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of the title—what does it mean to be a "husband and wife?" How do we reconcile our romantic ideals about marriage with the mundane realities of sorting socks, changing dirty diapers, cooking dinner?
2. Describe Sarah and Nathan's marriage. Is this husband and wife a good fit? How did marriage change them from when they first met? Does marriage have to transform us as individuals? How do we retain who we once were—and the promise of the dreams we once had—as the years pass? Should we even want to?
3. Infidelity is the catalyst for the events that unfold in Husband and Wife. How do you define infidelity? It is commonly accepted that having sex with another person beside your mate is cheating. But is harboring romantic feelings for someone other than your partner infidelity as well? How would you compare the two?
4. Why did Nathan cheat? Why did he confess? Was he right to tell Sarah about his infidelity? Are there some secrets partners should keep to themselves?
5. Talk about Sarah's reaction to Nathan's news. Are you sympathetic to her response? She, too, has a secret—one involving feelings for another man—that she has been keeping from her husband for years. What affect does this have on her marriage and the events that unfold? Did Nathan's behavior give her license to act as she did, or do you think she might have turned to Rajiv at some point even if Nathan never cheated?
6. After he confesses the affair, Nathan tells Sarah that their future—the marriage, the publication of his book—is hers to decide. Why did he give her this power? Should he have? Did she want this control?
7. At the beginning of the story, Sarah reveals a little about herself. "Now I'm thirty-five, and these days most people would call me a working mother, a term I don't much like. That I have a job and two small children is a better, if less succinct, way to put it." Having gotten to know her over the course of the novel, why does the term "working mother" bother her? Do you think it's an accurate description? What's the difference between being a working mother and having a job with children?
8. She also shares insights into the path her life has taken and its impact on her relationship. "When we met, I was a poet. When Nathan confessed, I was a mother, a business manager, a wife. I'm not saying I held this against him. I'm saying he held it against me." Do you agree with her assessment?
9. What is your opinion of Sarah? What kind of a wife and mother is she? Why did she stop writing? Does Sarah bear any responsibility for her husband's betrayal? Do we choose our roles—victim, cheater, responsible one, free spirit, artist, employee—or are they thrust upon us?
10. What is Sarah and Nathan's relationship with their elderly neighbors? When she learns they have been married for fifty-three years, Sarah wonders, "Was this a good thing? A bad thing? Just a fact?" How would you answer her? Should marriage last a lifetime?
11. What role do their best friends, Helen and Smith, play in the story? What about the couple they brought together, Alex and Adam? Their neighbors, the Dodsons? What do we learn about Sarah and Nathan through them?
12. Sarah ponders Americans' ambivalence and confusion about growing up. "We say that growing up is all about disappointment, even as we insist to our young that anything is possible. ‘Follow your dreams,' we say, and then we spend our free time making fun of the blinkered contestants on American Idol." Why do we associate adulthood and disappointment? What does it mean to "follow your dream" or to "do what you want"? Should we encourage ourselves to seek fulfillment if it may hurt others?
13. Sarah thinks of herself as a grown up. Is she? What does being an adult mean? How does aging—and the experiences that go with it—color our outlook on life? How do we cope when the realities of middle life don't match up with the dreams of our youth?
14. Husband and Wife also touches on the idea of happiness. What is happiness? Are we too focused as a society on the notion of happiness? Why? Are Sarah and Nathan happy? Were they before Nathan's confession? Is happiness possible after infidelity?
15. Why does Sarah go to Austin? What does Rajiv offer her that Nathan does not? Do you think Sarah treated Rajiv fairly? What about Nathan? Does he deserve fairness or consideration in light of what he's done?
16. What do you think of Nathan? Were you angry with him? Sympathetic? Did you understand his motivations? Do you believe he loves Sarah? Does Sarah love him? Why do we hurt the people we say we love? What are your impressions of Rajiv?
17. Does Sarah ultimately forgive Nathan's transgression—is she capable of forgiveness? How do you think Nathan would react if he knew of Sarah's own betrayal? Why doesn't she tell him? Do you think she may ever confess to him?
18. At the end of the novel, do you think Sarah made the right choice? Should she have left Nathan? Will their relationship last? What lessons did she ultimately learn about herself, her husband, and marriage itself? What did you learn? Do you think Husband and Wife an accurate portrayal of modern relationship?
(Questions by publisher.)
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