My Husband was written by Maud Ventura and translated by Emma Ramadan. Originally written in French, this novel was published in 2021 and was an instant hit in France, even winning the Prix du Premier Roman. If you love a good character study and don’t mind a book with little plot, this is definitely a book to check out.
The novel takes you through a week in the main character’s life and her complicated relationship with her husband. Ventura guides you through the narrator’s mind, mostly centering around her obsession with romance and her mediocre husband. If you enjoy a narrator who is absolutely off her rocker, you will devour this book. If you have read Gone Girl, Nightbitch, or A Certain Hunger and enjoyed them, I would recommend this book to you, because it also centers around a very cerebral woman with mental health issues. Her character is probably the most similar to Amy’s in Gone Girl, in that they both act in extremely manipulative ways in order to control their husbands.
From here on I will be discussing parts of the book, including events that happen. If you have not read the book, consider this your official
So in the book, we discover that she has been married to her husband for 13 years now and has managed to keep herself in the “honeymoon phase” of their relationship. To do this she talks about a few of her strategies, including keeping a journal of his “offenses” and proper punishments that she has decided upon, cheating on him every Thursday, and keeping everything as visually perfect for him as possible. These are all obvious evidence of her mental illness and obsession with her husband, but I think there are a few more interesting scenarios to consider when examining her psyche.
A part of the book that I found incredibly interesting was when she reflected on having told a friend of hers about how she truly feels about her husband. She discussed how she still felt like a schoolgirl with a crush, rather than the slow and sometimes boring love that most married people feel. She was fretting and fearing that her husband didn’t love her as much as she loved him. However, the interesting part comes in the friend’s response. The friend points out that her husband probably does love her more since his love has matured to different stages, while hers remains stuck in the beginning phase of a romance. I enjoyed this break from her unrealistic and inflated sense of love, as it reminded the reader that what the main character is feeling is neither practical nor healthy.
When I was reading about her actions and her feelings towards her husband, it almost felt like reading the idealized version of romance that is shown to teenage girls: how you should romanticize the man of your dreams, constantly think about him, and be constantly infatuated with him. Ventura reminds us that this is unsubstantial for a mature relationship by including the intervening opinion of the friend, as well as noting the insane lengths that the wife goes to to maintain this version of romance.
Throughout the entire novel, she fears that her husband is going to leave her or divorce her. This manifests in neurotic levels of analysis of his behavior, including being upset over him calling her a clementine and the fact that he insists on sleeping with the blinds closed. One portion in particular when she is reflecting on how she alters her quality of sleep to suit his needs, stands out as particularly telling of her mental state.
At one point in the book, her husband is standing near the window. This leads her to contemplate pushing him out of the window and killing him. I personally loved this tone shift in the book, because it shows how dark her mind truly is. It also works as a way to excuse her use of suitable “punishments” for his actions. She notes that killing him because he sleeps with the blinds closed would not be an appropriate punishment, which in my understanding, served as the primary motive to not push him.
Honestly, especially because of this scene, I was convinced that this book was going to end in her killing her husband. To be honest, I am still very conflicted over the ending. Like… I get it. The husband was manipulating her the whole time, and fed into her neuroses. It does put a nicely feminist spin on the novel, which I enjoyed. I also liked how it played into the relationship cliche of the husband making the wife doubt herself and feel like she’s crazy, but amped up to 100.
But to be frank, I kind of liked the fact that she was the one manipulating him. I didn’t love that he was actually the puppet master and that was the big twist ending. I suppose I didn’t see it coming, which is nice, but I think I would have liked the book just as much if it didn’t have the epilogue portion. What I enjoyed most was getting to see into her mind and how she went through life with her husband.
All and all, a great read with a divisive ending. I really enjoyed this book, but I think there are some very valid critiques of the lack of plot and unnecessary epilogue.
What did you guys think?