Husband and Wife - by Leah Stewart Paperback

About the Book

A young mother discovers that her husband's novel about infidelity might be drawn from real life, and suddenly her world is turned upside down. Pushed from her complacent plateau, Sarah begins to act--for the first time not so responsibly--on all the things she has let go of for so long in a struggle to find which version of herself is the essential one--artist, wife, or mother.

Book Synopsis

"Leah Stewart's brilliantly written novel Husband and Wife is a deeply human book: funny, tender, smart, self-aware. When you read it you will laugh, you will cry, you will recognize others, you will recognize yourself." -- Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Castaways and Barefoot

From the highly acclaimed author of The Myth of You and Me comes a new novel about a young mother who finds her identity rocked to the core when her writer-husband reveals his next novel about infidelity isn't entirely fiction. Fans of Meg Wolitzer, Ayelet Waldman, and Marisa de los Santos, as well as memoirs like Happens Every Day and Perfection, will love Leah Stewart's Husband and Wife.

From the Back Cover

Sarah Price has never regretted trading her MFA for a steady job so that her husband, Nathan, could write fiction. But at age thirty-five, her world is turned upside-down by a shocking revelation: Nathan's upcoming novel, Infidelity, is based on fact. Reeling from his betrayal, Sarah is plagued by dark questions. How well does she really know her husband? More important, how well does she know herself?

For answers, Sarah looks back to her artistic twentysomething self to try to understand what exactly has happened to her dreams. And so begins her quest to discover which version of herself is the essential one--the artist, wife, mother, or someone else entirely--an eye-opening journey that leads Sarah hundreds of miles away from her marriage and back to herself.

Review Quotes

"Hilarious, heartbreaking, and wise, Husband and Wife is a novel to savor. Stewart's bright heroine is faced with an impossible choice--and I couldn't put the book down until I'd followed her story to the end." - Amanda Eyre Ward, author of Love Stories in This Town
"Stewart's book does what real life doesn't always allow: It gives the woman a voice." - Raleigh News & Observer
"Leah Stewart's brilliantly written novel Husband and Wife is a deeply human book: funny, tender, smart, self-aware. When you read it you will laugh, you will cry, you will recognize others, you will recognize yourself." - Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Castaways and Barefoot
"This narrative voice is so alive and specific that it moves past the idea of 'narrative voice' to become a human woman speaking to you. Sarah Price tells the story of how her life cracks open one day and of how she has to consider each piece of it in order to know which parts of herself she wants to keep, which parts she wants to reclaim, and what to do next. I cherish this wry, funny, aching, intelligent character and this book!" - Marisa de los Santos, author of Belong to Me and Love Walked In
"Stewart creates a crisis of faith where adult reality collides with youthful dreams. The writing is tactile, elemental, even comical, providing readers with a situation that could so easily be their own." - Library Journal (starred review)
"[Stewart] is a perceptive writer with a keen grasp of contemporary culture and domestic life whose depictions of marriage and motherhood are pitch-perfect in tone and detail." - Booklist
"This narrative voice is so alive and specific that it moves past the idea of 'narrative voice' to become a human woman speaking to you. . . . I cherish this wry, funny, aching, intelligent character and this book!" - Marisa de los Santos, author of Belong to Me and Love Walked In
"An unflinching look at what happens when one's identity is shattered, and 'what-ifs' and past choices come back to haunt the present. . . . Stewart's graceful prose and easy storytelling pull the reader into caring about what happens to the struggling heroine while exploring the many gray areas of life and marriage." - Publishers Weekly
"Heartbreaking and darkly humorous. . . . [Stewart] is an acute social observer." - BookPage.com