MOTHER DAUGHTER WIDOW WIFE

by Robin Wasserman

Mother Daughter Widow Wife is another of this year’s Pen/Faulkner finalists for the fiction award. The novel is a tightly crafted story about a young woman, Lizzie Epstein, who wins a prestigious fellowship to the Meadowlark Institute, a multi-disciplinary lab working on memory research. In short order, Lizzie finds herself the favorite fellow of Dr. Benjamin Strauss, the Institute’s director. She becomes responsible for the Institute’s most interesting patient: a woman who has no memory of who she is or from where she comes. Lizzie allows herself to become romantically involved with Strauss, a married man, knowing that she is compromising her budding career. She eventually marries Strauss and steps back from that career – only to have her husband die suddenly and leave her floundering.

Wasserman meticulously constructs the web of connections that binds her characters together. Each short chapter is told from one of the three main characters’ points of view: the woman, Wendy, who has no memory; Lizzie who is trying to solve the medical mystery of Wendy’s memory loss; and Alice, the young woman who is searching for her missing mother. Wasserman develops each of these characters so beautifully that the reader comes to realize the book’s title could refer to each of these characters.

Mother Daughter Widow Wife has a storyline so compelling that you’ll have a hard time putting the book down. Wasserman includes several unexpected outcomes. Towards the end of the book, I found myself saying, “Oh my God!” out loud at one of the twists. You’ll thank me for this recommendation. It’s a real winner. (Liz)