Published in 2021
272 pages
Maud Ventura lives in Paris. She leads the podcast division of one of France’s major radio stations and speaks fluent English. My Husband is her first novel.
Emma Ramadan (translator) is the recipient of the PEN Translation Prize, the Albertine Prize, an NEA Fellowship, and a Fulbright Scholarship. Her translations include Barbara Molinard’s Panics, Virginie Despentes’s Pretty Things, and Abdellah Taïa’s A Country for Dying. She lives in Brooklyn.
What is this book about?
In this suspenseful and darkly funny debut novel, a sophisticated French woman spends her life obsessing over her perfect husband–but can their marriage survive her passionate love?
At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated. After all, would a truly infatuated man ever let go of his wife’s hand when they’re sitting on the couch together?
Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, charting every mistake and punishing him accordingly to help him improve. And she tests him–setting traps to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.
Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far . . .
The winner of France’s First Novel Prize in 2021, My Husband builds on the premise of hits like Gone Girl and Fates and Furies–how well can you really know your spouse?–and adds the tension and creepy obsession of You. The result is an irresistible read–compelling, tense, and engaging, infused with sly subversive humor, and told in an utterly original voice that makes it unforgettable.
