'Novel About My Wife' by Emily Perkins | Now to Love

I’m sure anyone who did their oE in London in the 1980s or ’90s will immediately identify with the couple at the centre of Emily Perkins’ new novel.

We’ve all met a Tom Stone before. He’s the English fortysomething who loves his wife but is having trouble growing up and adjusting to the whole baby-on-the-way/job/mortgage package. And we’ve all met an Ann Stone too. She’s the gorgeous-looking, free-spirited stunner who turns out to be Australian despite her London accent; a reformed party girl who never talks about her past and blossoms in pregnancy. Trouble brews, however, when Ann becomes convinced she’s being shadowed by a homeless man although no-one else ever sees him. As her behaviour becomes more bizarre, a jobless Tom struggles to contain their spiralling money problems, with dire consequences.

I found the characters very compelling, in fact, I felt sure I already knew them. And because of this vague recognition factor, I just had to keep turning those pages until I found out exactly what had happened. Emily Perkins does a wonderful job of telling this story from Tom’s perspective (she could almost be the next Nick Hornby, although I’m sure she doesn’t want to be) as she weaves a tale of modern marriage, horrible coincidence and hidden pasts.

The book has a great cover too, by the way. For once, the publishers have made an effort to match the girl on the front to the description of the character. I’m not sure about the name, though. Novel About oy Wife seems like the generic sort of title you might give a book while you’re waiting for the good fairies to turn up with a real one. This is such a confident, gripping story I thought the title could have done a better job of advertising that. But then again, it is a novel about someone’s wife.