A review by wileyacez
The Good Wife by Stewart O'Nan

4.0

Man, what a lot of life gets packed successfully into this small book. This story is about a pregnant woman whose husband manages to get drunk one night, end up robbing a house and killing the owner, and land himself in prison for the next twenty-odd years. Amazingly, with help from her family, she remains in love with the spouse, raises a son, and manages to end up on a career path before he is finally released from prison. It's the story of her growth and steadfastness, and a thousand divergent paths are left behind as you read the book. Those potential story lines (you never know exactly what happened during the botched burglary, no other characters take part in telling the story, characters fall out of the story and are never heard from/about again) ate at me as I was reading along, but the ending very appropriately made them all insignificant. I did not put this one down for long as it was a very compelling read. I see why it gets the hype.