The Half Wives
A Novel
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3.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Part historical fiction, part heartbreaking romance, part bildungsroman, this book takes readers on a journey rich with detail and darkness" (Seattle Book Review).
Henry Plageman is a master secret-keeper. A former Lutheran minister, he lost his faith after losing his infant son, Jack, many years ago; his wife, Marilyn, remains consumed by grief. But Henry has another life—another woman and another child—unknown to Marilyn. His lover, Lucy, yearns for a man she can be with openly while their eight-year-old daughter, Blue, tries to make sense of her parents' fractured lives
The Half Wives follows these interconnected characters through one momentous day, May 22, 1897, the sixteenth anniversary of Jack's birth. Marilyn distracts herself with charity work. Henry needs to talk his way out of the police station, where he has spent the night for disorderly conduct. Lucy must rescue the intrepid Blue, who has fallen in a saltwater well. Before long, the four will be drawn to the same destination—the city cemetery on the outskirts of San Francisco—where the collision of lives and secrets leaves no one unaltered.
A Finalist for the Townsend Prize
"The developing San Francisco of the 1890s becomes a rich background for these three as they play out their messy, somber, intertwined fates." —The New York Times Book Review
"A poignant, sometimes heart-rending, beautifully crafted, always gripping tale of loss and love, and the human need to try to set things right." —Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd
"Pelletier's writing is moving and enthralling . . . [She] keeps readers hooked right up to the book's satisfying conclusion." —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pelletier's (Accidents of Providence) excellent second novel chronicles May 22, 1897, as it unfolds in San Francisco for Marilyn Plageman; her ex-pastor husband, Henry; Henry's mistress of 10 years, taxidermist Lucy Christensen; and their daughter, Blue. After their son, Jack, died on his second birthday, Marilyn rebuffed her husband's affections. Four years later, Henry met Lucy and began an affair with her. Marilyn has remained in the dark for many years, volunteering for charitable causes and longing to communicate with Henry while pushing him away. On what would have been Jack's 16th birthday, everyone is on a path that leads to the cemetery where he is buried. Henry's running late for his annual ritual of planting flowers at Jack's grave site because he spent the night in jail after fighting to save the cemetery from being disinterred and turned into oceanfront property. Marilyn plans to disrupt Henry's routine; she brings along an orphaned child she befriended at the opening of an orphanage. Blue is recovering from having fallen through a skylight at a pump station where Lucy was trying to glean information for an article she planned on selling to the local paper. Lucy, who has managed to stay away from Henry for four months, is worried about how the separation will affect Blue, who longs for her father's company, and feels the need to bring Blue to see Henry at the cemetery. Pelletier's writing is moving and enthralling and conveys the conflict at the heart of the book: "He was never going to marry you," Lucy tells herself, "But he's not married to Marilyn either. He's yoked to that child in the ground, that child the city wants to move." Pelletier keeps readers hooked right up to the book's satisfying conclusion.
