What makes this book truly unputdownable is Willig’s prose: clean and sharp, as if every sentence has been carved from a block of ice. As the reader jumps back and forth between the stories, we become privy to a gradual drip of information that unfurls the central mystery. Janie’s story alternates with another, five years earlier and told from the perspective of an actress who had befriended Brayard on a trip long ago. Was it a murder/suicide? A stranger who killed them both and ran off into the night? Or neither? Janie aligns herself with a young reporter and discovers secrets about her family that she never would have expected. After his scandalous death and the disappearance of his new young bride, Brayard’s sister, Janie, tries to uncover the truth. It’s tempting to call this novel a mystery, but its scope is far wider than a whodunit: It’s a broad examination of culture and class at the turn of the twentieth century.īrayard Van Duyvil is the impressively-named prodigal son of a prominent New York family and heir to its massive fortune. A dazzling journey through the New York high society of the Gilded Age, where dresses and rumors are more important than politics, The English Wife drips with both Shakespeare references and near-pornographic descriptions of flapper-era fashion and well-appointed townhomes.
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