The Wife's Tale

A Novel

By Lori Lansens (Trade Paperback, 2011)

Mary Gooch was once young and slender and carefree. But with each passing year she's accumulated an excess of pounds and worries. When, on the eve of her 25^th wedding anniversary, her handsome husband Jimmy does not come home, Mary wonders whether her size or her aversion to adventure chased him off. With few clues, Mary boards a plane for the first time in her life, venturing to California in search of her husband. What she discovers is as shocking as it is delightful: a new vibrant energy--and an entirely different kind of hunger.

In THE WIFE'S TALE, Lori Lansens brings us another riveting outsider perspective in a powerful story of craving and fulfillment.

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- Format: Trade Paperback
- Price: $14.99 US
- ISBN-13: 9780316069328
- On Sale Date: 07/07/2011
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
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Formats Available: Trade Paperback, Electronic Book
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Lori Lansens was born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, a small Canadian town with a remarkable history and a collection of eccentric characters, which became the setting for her first two bestselling novels. Living with her family in southern California now, she could not resist the pull of her fictitious 'Baldoon County' when she set out to write The Wife's Tale. She took the journey, along with her main character, from Canada to the Pacific Coast of America, where she enjoys the sunshine, and has learned a thing or two about transformation.

"A sensitive but deliciously comic account of Mary's fight against the "obeast" that has lived inside her since childhood, The Wife's Tale offers more than self-improvement: there are loving reflections on marriage and family in small-town Ontario, hilarious travelogues about American obsessions like McMansions and vanity license plates, and a tender documentary of the improbable compassion of strangers for fellow travelers. Of course, there's plenty of self-discovery too.... Lansens has more than a few tales worth telling." (New York Times Sunday Book Review).
"Lansens--who lived so memorably inside the heads of conjoined twins Ruby and Rose in The Girls--sketches another indelible female character here. Mary Gooch... [is] original... heartbreakingly funny and sad." (Entertainment Weekly).
"Lansens' clear prose unveils the connection between a body weighed down by flesh and a spirit smothered by loneliness. Mary's odyssey of heartache and hope is not so much about finding her husband as it is about rediscovering herself." (People).
"Lansens' rendering of the hell that is compulsive eating somehow transcends these overarching positions, eliciting simultaneously compassion, revulsion, and, for anyone who has ever struggled with emotional eating, undeniable recognition.... Mary Gooch becomes real and unforgettable." (Slate "XX Factor").
"Lansens's hopeful and gentle third novel (after The Girls), opens in the same fictitious Ontario county as its predecessors, but the heroine's journey takes her to a vastly different landscape, both literally and spiritually... Mary Gooch's [is] a wonderful character, and Lansens's handling of her eventual transformation into someone capable of compassion and acceptance is handled with a light but assured touch." (Publishers Weekly ).
"Lansens's portrait of a woman who hides behind the Kenmore as protection from life's heartache is earthy and primal in its pain. Yet Lansens doesn't resort to an overnight makeover to save Mary. Instead, our heroine uncovers a hidden strength she had all along. Those who loved The Girls will be pleased that Lansens is back. Highly recommended." (Library Journal).
"Lansens writes with acute insight into Mary's bingeing and depression, fully immersing readers in her protagonist's struggle to find a new and better self." (Booklist).