On a clear winter night in upstate New York, two young men break in to a house. Within minutes, an old woman is dead and the house is in flames. Ac...
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Dec 16, 2009
Myfanwy
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Told in a matter-of-fact, unsentimental way, The Good Wife tells the story of one family and 25 years of their lives as they work through the New York state penal system.
Tommy Dickerson does something stupid. He follows his friend Gary's lead and ends up involved in a murder for which he (and not Gary) pays the price--25 years in prison. At the time of his arrest, his wife Patty is pregnant. This is her story.
We see through her eyes the frustration of the poor as they t More...
Tommy Dickerson does something stupid. He follows his friend Gary's lead and ends up involved in a murder for which he (and not Gary) pays the price--25 years in prison. At the time of his arrest, his wife Patty is pregnant. This is her story.
We see through her eyes the frustration of the poor as they t More...
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Apr 12, 2008
David
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The sadness of this book, the long life story of a woman whose husband goes to jail for murder while she is pregnant with his child, reminded me of the big open lost sadness of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, even though the story is far less sensational. This is America not as a place of cruelty and menace, as in Cormac McCarthy, or a place of unrealized dreams, or a place of great injustice - it is less definite than that. It is a place of disconnection, of small lives, modest hopes. L
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Mar 21, 2011
Lynn
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I lived in Patty's world for the few days it took to read this book. O'Nan can create a setting, a mood, a sense of time and place in a few sentences. I am there in the courtroom, I am riding in the car with Patty, Her story is sad, but really, she is not. Never depressed and only occasionally self pitying but quickly recovers. Does what she has to do, plays the hand she, through no fault of her own, is dealt. I loved this book. My only question for her would be why she didn't question whe
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Oct 22, 2011
Khaya
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No offense, Marg, but reading this book reminded me of trudging through the streets on a cold, rainy day to run long and necessary errands without a car. Slog slog slog. Yes, it was well-written, but talk about depressing.
Patty is pregnant with her first child when her husband Tommy gets mixed up in a breaking and entering gone awry. Someone is murdered, and Tommy ends up going to prison. The book chronicles Patty's life raising her child on her own, standing by her (undeserving in More...
Patty is pregnant with her first child when her husband Tommy gets mixed up in a breaking and entering gone awry. Someone is murdered, and Tommy ends up going to prison. The book chronicles Patty's life raising her child on her own, standing by her (undeserving in More...
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Dec 30, 2009
Theresa
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Jul 26, 2009
El
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Patty Dickerson is woken one night by a phone call notifying her of her husband's arrest. Through a series of unfortunate penal events, Tommy is put behind bars for his activities. Patty becomes "the good wife" in that she struggles to balance her life with being there for her husband in jail. The struggles themselves are the bulk of the story - from having to move in with her family, raising their son on her own, taking a series of dead-end and low-paying jobs, driving hours both w
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Mar 08, 2009
Ross
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This is a simple and powerful book that basically tells the life of someone on “the outside” – that is, someone related to a prison inmate. O’Nan has a knack for conveying inner life through dialogue and simple statements. There aren’t many adjectives in this book, and not much in the way of beautiful prose. It is sparse and to the point. But it has the ring of truth, with the exception of a key fact about a codefendant. But that hardly matters. The book covers a long period of time and does an
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Sep 04, 2011
marg
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As an English teacher, I am often asked why we bother reading fiction. What can we possibly learn from made up stories? There are several answers to this question, but the one that resonates most with me is what Nasar Afisi points out in her memoir, which is that fiction - good fiction - makes us uncomfortable in our moral skin and reminds us that there is more than one way to view the world. By presenting conflicts and complex issues, fiction reminds us how ambiguous even morality can be and to
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Jun 23, 2009
Sandra
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My first Stewart O'Nan book. I kept reading until the end because I thought something was going to happen, maybe a suicide, who knows...
But nothing did happen.
Of course I felt for Patty, she has a very hard life. But overall I was bored. Sometimes O'Nan describes every little detail like which ingredients she needs to prepare dinner or which cookies she bakes, then he skips years ahead. At some point the boy is about to fail maths and then on the next page skippign ahead some years More...
But nothing did happen.
Of course I felt for Patty, she has a very hard life. But overall I was bored. Sometimes O'Nan describes every little detail like which ingredients she needs to prepare dinner or which cookies she bakes, then he skips years ahead. At some point the boy is about to fail maths and then on the next page skippign ahead some years More...
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Mar 17, 2011
Matt
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There is a very small list of professions dramatized in modern novels, television shows, and movies. Drama requires that a protagonist be able to engage in the action at any time; as such, he or she can’t be helping someone fill out a loan application while there’s an international conspiracy to unravel. The most popular fictional jobs belong to doctors, lawyers, and law enforcement officials, since a story’s drama can arise organically from the job. Outside of that realm, fictional professions
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Jul 25, 2011
Eliseh
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I'm not giving anything away because we find out in the first chapter that after pregnant and tired Patty goes home to sleep and leaves her husband, Tommy, celebrating a sports victory at a bar, he and a buddy accidentally cause the death of an old woman whose house they are try to burglarize after they leave the bar. So begins this story of a very loyal wife. She loves her man and sticks by him.
It's Patty's story we hear, through her inner dialog and her eyes. Goodreads doesn't al More...
It's Patty's story we hear, through her inner dialog and her eyes. Goodreads doesn't al More...
Feb 05, 2009
The Good Wife, O'Nan's ninth novel (after The Night Country *** Jan/Feb 2004), tells a compassionate, nonjudgmental tale about love, faith, blue-collar existence, prison life, and, above all, the ordinary act of waiting. Told in the present tense by an omniscient narrator, the novel delves deep inside its characters, particularly the hopeful Patty. Although he fails to fully develop her son, O'Nan limns Patty with sympathy and a sharp eye for all the period details that mark her long, difficult
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Sep 19, 2011
Suible
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There are big events in this book - the husband commits a crime. There is a trial and he is sentenced to prison - all this happens early in the book, so these are not spoilers. Life goes on. In some ways, not much else happens in this book. I did rather expect some other big event, but it really didn't. Life continued. Patty, her husband and their son . . . their lives happened to them. Some things got better, some things got worse. There is a realism in this book that is almost shocking.
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Jul 09, 2009
Jennifer
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I really liked this book. Living in the Southern Tier of New York State, I found it really interesting to read a work of fiction that mentions cities and landmarks all around me! It's evident that O'Nan is extremely familiar with this area. This book is told from the perspective of Patty Dickerson who finds herself navigating through life on her own when her husband is sent to prison. This book really draws you into Patty's world as she copes with single motherhood (although she has the support
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Feb 18, 2010
Melissa
rated it:
I almost gave this 3 stars, but I feel like I'm always too generous with my ratings, and besides, I didn't really like it all that much. It was pretty good, I suppose. I found it a bit boring is all. It's the story of a woman who's husband is found guilty of murder while she's pregnant with his kid. It follows her life throughout her husband's 30 years in prison. It's sad. I wanted her to move on with her life, but she really does love her husband, so she sticks it out. Overall, I just couldn't
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Mar 26, 2011
Gerri
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I am endeavoring to read all of O'Nan's books, and so far I've only met up with one that didn't hold me. I'd held off on this one because the subject matter didn't really appeal: a young woman must make a life for herself and her child while her husband is in jail for murder. Yeah, not the feel good story of the year. And it is about just about nothing, with ordinary people at every turn.
And yet, I find that it is one that has stayed with me, the same way Last Night at the Lobster More...
And yet, I find that it is one that has stayed with me, the same way Last Night at the Lobster More...
Nov 20, 2009
Corey
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I loved this book to begin with, then I only liked it, then I decided I sort of hated it. In the end, I simply don't know what to make of it. I walked home from the library with a stack of books and read the fist chapter of each. This was the one I couldn't put down... something about the simplicity of his writing and the urgency of the opening scenes (pregnant wife gets a call from husband at 2 am, "I'm in a little trouble"). I think I still like the writing but was disappointed w
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Jan 24, 2010
Jane
rated it:
Unlike the wife in the current TV series, The Good Wife, Patty has neither money or education to fall back on when her when her husband is sent to prison. What she has is an unflinching belief that Tommy is not guilty of murder. She is working class and pregnant. Her situation isn't as bad many in her situation find themselves, but it is a day to day struggle. It's hard to describe the book without making it sound boring. But it's not boring, it's the story of quiet day to day heroism. Don'
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Jul 18, 2011
Jenny
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This book got my attention because of its subject: it tells the story of Patty, a woman whose husband, Tommy, is jailed because of his involvement in a serious crime. The book covers how Patty struggles to face life on the "outside" while also maintaining her relationship with her incarcerated husband. The book goes more in-depth in the early years of Tommy's incarceration and describes less of Patty's life and thoughts during the later years; that is why I gave it only three stars ins
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Feb 06, 2011
Carolyn F.
rated it:
This was a surprisingly good book. The short paragraph describing it was good, but I bought it mostly because it was $5.00. I also thought I would have a problem with the Laural Merlington's narration because she also does the Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry books and I thought I would see Merry in my head, but she actually did a fantastic job, even with the male voices.
This is the story of a young wife whose husband accidentally kills someone in a home robbery. She stays with More...
This is the story of a young wife whose husband accidentally kills someone in a home robbery. She stays with More...
Feb 27, 2009
Deb
rated it:
This was a wonderful book. Having said that, I must warn those who are interested in reading it that I felt very sad after each listen. It's a very bleak story of a couple who are separated because of a crime that the husband commits when the two are young and newly married, the wife is pregnant. O'Nan does a wonderful job of taking the reader through the years and decades of the couple's separation. It is a simple story, but quite effective and I just loved his writing style. I'm eager to read
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Jan 04, 2009
Beth
rated it: 
This book came highly recommended by NPR commentators, and several other sources as well. Well, I just couldn't make myself like it. The writing didn't seem very compelling to me, and I just couldn't sympathize with "the good wife". In the end she seemed like a not very strong-willed person. She never seemed to make choices in her life, but let her life choose for her. This is not the same as sticking it out in a tough situation. She could have taken more control of her life. I
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Nov 28, 2008
Kp-4
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O'Nan has this wonderful talent of making the mundane poetic. I loved "Last Night at the Lobster" and again he places his characters squarely in the realm of the ordinary. The novel takes place in upstate NY (where I grew up) and follows Patsy as a young, pregnant wife who married the bad boy. We quickly realize that this is a marriage of true love because when Tommy gets indicted for murder, she stands by him and waits for him 25 years. What follows is her journey, her struggle, and
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Aug 16, 2010
Pam
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I've read most of O'Nan's books. In some of them, lots of stuff happens -- an epidemic and a fire in A Prayer for the Dying, a car accident and a haunting in The Night Country, a murder in Snow Angels. But his books where "nothing happens" are just as interesting -- Last Night at the Lobster, Wish You Were Here, and this one.
There's more than one way to look at Patty's dedication to her husband, her "steadfastness" through his 28 years in prison Could be she More...
There's more than one way to look at Patty's dedication to her husband, her "steadfastness" through his 28 years in prison Could be she More...
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Jul 04, 2009
Laura
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This was an ok book...definitely an interesting take on how a family functions when the husband/father is incarcerated for a long time (28 years in this case). This was a dysfunctional family to begin with, as Patty is fairly naive and clueless about her husband's after hours activities. It's never made clear exactly what Tommy's role was in the incident over which he & his friend are arrested, but it is clear that Patty believes him to be the more innocent party, and in that respect I tend un
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Oct 23, 2010
Denise
rated it:
I was impressed with the movie Snow Angels directed by David Gordon Green, a young man from a fine family we know. The author of Snow Angels is Stewart O'Nan. I had a note to self to read any title by O'Nan. Found The Good Wife at Powells Books in Portland. Read it this afternoon. The story of the wife of an incarcerated man. Very interesting prospective. This would be a great book for discussion - should she have stood by him all those years or should she have created a new life?
Apr 20, 2010
Jonathan
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"The Good Wife" is an oddly rewarding book. I picked it up because Stewart O'Nan wrote it, and I very much liked "Snow Angels," which he also authored. The book moves slowly, and through the first half I thought it was slow and maybe a little boring. But once you make it through the middle, you realize the pace of the novel is deliberate. I'll spare you the synopsis, but O'Nan very effectively makes the reader feel what it's probably like to be the wife of a man who is senten
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Jun 04, 2008
Renee
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The Good Wife, begins with a phone call in the middle of the night. Small-town housewife Patty Dickerson, pregnant with her first child, has been waiting in bed for her husband Tommy to get home. When the call comes, it's from jail. Tommy has been arrested for murder after a robbery gone awry. He doesn't make it home for 28 years.
This isn/t a novel of beating the odds but of enduring them. We follow Patty through her husband's long incarceration as she moves in with family, gets a series o More...
This isn/t a novel of beating the odds but of enduring them. We follow Patty through her husband's long incarceration as she moves in with family, gets a series o More...
Jun 16, 2011
Kathleen
rated it:
Stewart O'Nan writes well about family dynamics..all the minutia of those moments when no one else knows what is going on in private conversations. Patty trusts Tommy, and finds out he has been lying to her. After a woman dies in a botched burglary, Tommy heads off to prison, and Patty's life, and that of her newly born infant takes on the crisis mode for more years than it seems possible to remain married under such circumstances. I had to know how this would end, and I wasn't disappointed.
