Sea Wife

For readers of Meg Wolitzer,Lionel ShriverKate Atkinsonand Jennifer Egan From the highly acclaimed author of Schrodera smartsophisticated literary page turner about a young family who escape suburbia for a year-long sailing trip that upends all of their lives Juliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her anemic dissertation when her husbandMichaelinforms her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. The couple are novice sailorsbut Michael persuades Juliet to say yes. With their two kids–Sybilage sevenand Georgeage twoJuliet and Michael set off for Panamawhere their forty-four-foot sailboat awaits them–a boat that Michael has christened the Juliet. The initial result is transformative: their marriage is given a gust of energyand even the children are affected by the beauty and wonderful vertigo of travel. The sea challenges them all–and most of allJulietwho suffers from postpartum depression. Sea Wife is told in gripping dual perspectives: Juliet’s first-person narrationafter the journeyas she struggles to come to terms with the direlife-changing events that unfolded at sea; and Michael’s captain’s log–that provides a rivetingslow-motion account of those same inexorable events. Exuberantharrowingwittyand exquisitely writtenSea Wife is impossible to put down. A wholly original take on one of our oldest stories–survival at sea–it also asks a pertinent question for our polarized political moment: How does a crew with deep philosophical differences and outmoded gender roles bring a ship safely to shore?