THE WIFE by Meg Wolitzer

What a disappointment.   Joe Castleman and his wife Joan are on their way to Helsinki so that Joe can accept a literary prize that is a notch or so below the Nobel.   Joan is not exactly basking in the glow of her husband’s success and decides on the flight over that she is finally ready to divorce him.  He has cheated on her more times than she can count, and I have to ask, “What has taken her so long?”  She abandoned her life as a coed at Smith College to be with Joe, her married English professor who recognized that she had talent as a writer.  Unfortunately, Wolitzer telegraphs the wife’s long-held “secret” way too often and too obviously.  The “revelation” at the end is not a surprise at all and basically robs Joan of all respect from this reader.  I just have a problem with a smart woman subjugating herself to her husband as she did.  I get it that in the 1950s a woman’s career options were more limited than they are today, but still, for me, Joan is totally lacking in gumption.  Every time she has a chance to spill the beans, she chickens out, erasing any shred of credibility she ever had with her children and everyone else, except Joe’s devoted fans.  Wolitzer is an excellent writer, but in this case I found the storyline to be excruciatingly painful and frustrating.