Kate Zambreno

I never entertained the fantasy of the white wedding dress, nor did I have a mother breathing biological clock voodoo down my neck.

While in graduate school, one woman I knew would sit during philosophy lectures and doodle grandiose gowns befitting of Anna Sui. She didn't have the groom yet attached at that time, but when a fitting prospect came along, she quickly became engaged, throwing away her nascent dreams of being a museum curator for the role of wife. Not that I'm entirely cynical about the institution of marriage, just skeptical about those who think marriage is the solution to life's questions. And you have to wonder, after the last lingerie shower and the honeymoon hoopla is over, and you've shown that big whopper on your finger to just about everyone, then what happens?

Grace Brookman, in Nina Solomon's debut novel "Single Wife," is one answer. After marrying the man of her dreams, Laz, a brilliant, enigmatic, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, she finds her identity in question when one of her husband's prolonged unexplained absences becomes seemingly permanent. As opposed to fessing up to everyone around her, she pretends that he's still there, weaving a web of lies to cover up her loss. She refuses to give up this role of wife, knowing then that she has nothing left. Most noticeable is Grace's invisibility; the nonexistent husband remains a central character in the novel. "Where's Laz?" everyone asks. "Oh, no, Laz couldn't come!" her friends groan, not even realizing their injury.

Most of the novel Grace walks around like a deer caught in headlights, until she takes a plane (buying two tickets) to Chicago to visit her friend living in Wicker Park. With her proper socialite wife covered up by a wild leopard-fur coat after a trip to the thrift store, she begins to assert her independence. She eats out alone. She makes decisions on her own. She is probably where she was before she met Laz.

Without giving away the details, the mystery of her disappeared husband is solved at the end and Grace asserts the identity of the singleton. Even if she ends up alone, "Single Wife" still reads like a well-written addition to the new genre known as "chick lit," although with a quieter and slyer humor.

Single Wife

By Nina Solomon

Algonquin Books, $23.95, 307 pages

(2003-06-11)

Also by Kate Zambreno

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Caroline Knapp died last year at the age of 42 from lung cancer one month after her diagnosis, and it's difficult to read her posthumously published "Appetites: Why Women Want" without being poignantly aware that she was unconsciously near the end while so close to fully realizing herself.
(2003-06-04)

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Back in 1998, when the fashion designer resided in Los Angeles, camisoles she stitched together out of sari fabric brought back from a trip to Bali adorned the likes of Madonna and sold out at Fred Segal in four days. Then the Indonesian economy collapsed, crushing her nascent business just as it was taking off.
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That's the joy of tiki, says James Teitelbaum, self-described "urban archeologist" and author of "Tiki Road Trip: A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America," as he sips on a goofily named beverage, "Planet of the Apes."
(2003-05-07)

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Tip of the Week
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Tip of the Week
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