Judith Sullivan is a writer in London, originally from Baltimore. She is working on a crime series set in Paris. Fluent in French, she’s pretty good with English and has conversational Italian and German and 20+ years in Leeds improved her Yorkshire speak.
The title and the dust jacket of this book are misleading, suggesting as they do that Taylor’s novel dissects a dysfunctional marriage.
Yes, Husband looks at love relationships but this interesting book is more a scathing takedown of a dysfunctional community rather than of one couple. On the surface the town of Lowbridge is a cheery, comfortable upper middle-class enclave in which neighbours swap gossip and childcare duties. But scratch one French-manicured fingernail on that surface and ugliness emerges. Jealousy, resentment, greed and mistrust combine for a nasty backdrop. It is against the backdrop that our heroine-ish Jude must address niggling doubts as she falls for the titular husband, the evasive Will.
Widower Will is the subject of much of the malicious chitchat. Not only did his first wife die young but his subsequent partner Robyn has vanished into the mist. Jude’s attraction to Will is growing and their daughters are besties. However, she cannot help but fret about the whispers the chap might have offed two women.
Lowbridge is dominated by a coven of the kind of Pinot-swilling, yoga-practicing not so yummy mums that dominate much of terrestrial tv programming. To Taylor’s credit, she rounds these women out by literally giving them voices. Chapters are told from many points of view, including those of Lowbridge grandes dames Sorrell and Victoria.
Aside from Will’s possible taste for femicide, the main plot driver is a blackmail scheme around a hit and maybe-run accident possibly involving Sorrell’s husband Finnley (a lot of funky names in this little town). Sorrell is plagued by untraceable WhatsApp messages from a party claiming to know her husband’s car hit a pedestrian who later died. The WhatsApper demands money to keep his/her mouth shut.
Cue Sorrell trying to figure out who among her wine and nibbles evenings buddies she can trust to help identify and stop the blackmailer. This is where Husband gets really interesting in the ebb and flow of relationships among the women in times of turmoil. At times, cattiness prevails, at others sisterhood flexes its power.
A few plot devices didn’t work so well for me. A grown woman keeps a diary that incriminates herself as well as other people. I am not sure longhand diaries are a thing these days and had I kept such a journal I would have locked it in Fort Knox, rather than a cardboard box. There is also a typo situation that as a copy editor I found droll, but as a reader I found overly convenient as a plot point.
All in all, Husband works both as satire of keeping up with the Joneses mentalities and as a crime novel. In the latter job, the book suitably dives and weaves and misleads and misguides. Taylor plays with expectations while juggling a large cast of characters, all of whom are fleshed out and distinguishable. What they all have in common is an interest in gossip, which, as one character comments can be like wildfire and one spark risks setting a person’s life aflame.
