I thoroughly enjoyed Charlotte Mendelson’s sharply funny novel, The Exhibitionist, so was delighted when Wife popped through my letterbox. Mendelson does a fine line in dysfunctional families turning her hand to the theme once again with Zoe and her wife Penny whose two daughters have a complicated set of co-parents, all intent on an equal share no matter what the children think.
This was the land of fairytale: on one side of the bed, a gross backward peasant girl: on the other side, like a reflection in an enchanted pool, someone rare and strange.
Zoe is packing up her belongings and those of twelve-year-old Matty, anxious to move out before Penny arrives back. She’s desperate to get everything done in time to attend the mediation meeting at which she’s expecting a barrage of opposition from Penny, their daughters’ father and his sister with whom Penny had been living when she and Zoe began their relationship. Zoe is ten years Penny’s junior, a naïve PhD student when they first met, awestruck by Penny’s sophistication, beauty and worldliness. They’ve been together for eighteen years during which Penny has bullied and belittled her wife, cajoling her into having the children she’s come to adore, been outraged by her successful career and failed to make the tiniest of compromises. Zoe has soldiered on, locked into the rigid parenting arrangements demanded by her three co-parents, none of whom put their children’s needs first, until an epiphany opens her eyes and she decides she’s had enough.
I’ve tried to make this the story of an ordinary happy marriage. But she had a different version, running next to mine.
Mendelson weaves the events of Zoe’s final day in the family home through the story of this supremely dysfunctional relationship. Zoe’s ill-prepared for marriage; her father so adores her beautiful, self-absorbed mother that he never thinks to put his children first and her mother has prepared the ground for Penny, having undermined her daughter at every opportunity. With the histrionic, egotistical Penny it seems that Zoe has married her mother with knobs on and like her hapless father, can’t seem to disentangle herself until she finally sees the light. There are echoes of The Exhibitionist here: Penny’s colossal ego, her control and coercion of Zoe, and Zoe’s tacit complicity until a revelation is made reminded me of the Hanrahans. It’s very funny at times – Mendelson has a talent for acerbic social observation which saves it from melodrama – and Zoe is an engaging character. Another entertaining novel plumbing the depths of family dysfunctionality which, once again, ends with hope. It’s left me wondering if Mendelson is planning a return to similar emotional territory for her next novel or whether she might venture into something else.
Mantle: London 9781529052817 338 pages Hardback
This sounds quite a stressful read! But the humour and hopeful ending hopefully make it tolerable. I’m rooting for Zoe just from your review!
You’ve chosen well! The humour certainly helps, poking fun at the more monstrous characters.
As I’ve mentioned to you before, I have ambivalent feelings about Charlotte Mendelson but I’d definitely give her another go. Which would you say is the better novel, this or The Exhibitionist?
That’s a tricky one. I’d probably say this one but that might be because it’s freshest in my mind. I do think she needs to move on, now. Both novels explore such similar territory.
I see this got a good review in the Irish papers too. I have not read any of her previous work, but there seems to be a pattern in books about dysfunction and control. Might give this one a try, but one might be enough
I was happy to read this one but you’re right about those themes. I’d welcome a change of tack in her next novel.
A pattern in her books is what I mean.
Sounds well done though I suspect someone like Penny would completely frustrate me before too many pages in. One is glad Zoe at least sees the light, something her father doesn’t seem to have done
You have to not mind supremely unlikeable characters to put up with Penny which is where humour helps.
I don’t mind if there’s someone that’s sympathetic or the story is well told!
Many writers have one theme that they revisit in each book. If the theme is big enough, their books remain interesting. If not…Do you think the theme of family dysfunction is big enough?
Definitely, and it’s one of my favourites but there are lots of variations on the theme. Perhaps her next novel will explore one of them.
Ah, sounds a touch triggering for me.
Ah, I’m sorry to hear that, Davida. The effects of coercion and control are central themes,
I might have mentioned this before, but I can never remember which of her books I’ve read; still, I persist in thinking I’d enjoy them all. Such astute observations and the sense of fleeting moments have lasting effects.
She does have a sharp eye for human nature although I do wonder if it might be time for her to explore something other than dysfunctional familes in her next novel.