The Three of Us
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3.4 • 17 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Best Book of the Year
Time • Real Simple • Oprah Daily
A Belletrist Book Club Pick
"As short and sharp as a pairing knife . . . Moves along so briskly and with such sly wit . . . Deliciously wicked." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
Long-standing tensions between a husband, his wife, and her best friend finally come to a breaking point in this sharp domestic comedy of manners, told brilliantly over the course of one day.
What if your two favorite people hated each other with a passion?
The wife has it all. A big house in a nice neighborhood, a ride-or-die snarky best friend, Temi, with whom to laugh about facile men, and a devoted husband who loves her above all else—even his distaste for Temi.
On a seemingly normal day, Temi comes over to spend a lazy afternoon with the wife: drinking wine, eating snacks, and laughing caustically about the husband's shortcomings. But when the husband comes home and a series of confessions are made, the wife's two confidants are suddenly forced to jockey for their positions, throwing everyone's integrity into question—and their long-drawn-out territorial dance, carefully constructed over years, into utter chaos.
Told in three taut, mesmerizing parts—the wife, the husband, the best friend—over the course of one day, The Three of Us is a subversively comical, wildly astute, and painfully compulsive triptych of domestic life that explores cultural truths, what it means to defy them, and the fine line between compromise and betrayal when it comes to ourselves and the people we're meant to love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Agbaje-Williams's intoxicating debut, a Nigerian housewife's protective husband and freewheeling best friend vie for her loyalty and affection over the course of a single day. The unnamed wife grapples with the prospect of pregnancy, which she sees as a "ritual performed out of responsibility rather than desire." Her dilemma is complicated by a visit from her childhood best friend, Temi. Back in college, the self-seeking and brash Temi coaxed her friend out of her shell of reticence and fear, but in the meantime her conservative husband, also unnamed, has led her into a traditional gender role. Temi fears her friend is regressing into a "woman who is silent and subservient," and the husband, of course, has grown tired of Temi's presence and wants to start a family. The narrative unfolds as a triptych, each character helming a section from their point of view to wondrous and wearying effects as they retell and relitigate the same events. There's not much of a plot, though it's delicious to watch the characters' long-fermenting tensions come to the fore. It lands as a discerning debut from an author who knows a thing or two (or three) about the ever-shifting dynamics of intimacy.
