An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, Ex-Wife is the story of a divorce and its aftermath that scandalized the Jazz Age--and still resonates today. It's 1924, and Peter and Patricia have what looks to be a very modern marriage. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work, Patricia as a head copywriter at a major department store. When it comes to sex with other people, both believe in "the honesty policy." Until they don't. Or, at least, until Peter doesn't--and a shell-shocked, lovesick Patricia finds ...
Read More
An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, Ex-Wife is the story of a divorce and its aftermath that scandalized the Jazz Age--and still resonates today. It's 1924, and Peter and Patricia have what looks to be a very modern marriage. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work, Patricia as a head copywriter at a major department store. When it comes to sex with other people, both believe in "the honesty policy." Until they don't. Or, at least, until Peter doesn't--and a shell-shocked, lovesick Patricia finds herself starting out all over again, but this time around as a different kind of single woman: the ex-wife. An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, Ex-Wife captures the speakeasies, night clubs, and parties that defined Jazz Age New York--alongside the morning-after aspirin and calisthenics, the lunch-hour visits to the gym, the girl-talk, and the freedoms and anguish of solitude. It also casts a cool eye on the bedrooms and the doctor's offices where, despite rising hemlines, the men still call the shots. The result is a unique view of what its author Ursula Parrott called "the era of the one-night stand" an era very much like our own.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 232 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 232 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good in Good+ dust jacket. Hardcover. 8vo. Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, New York, 1929. 272 pgs. Sixth Printing. DJ has shelf-wear present to the DJ extremities (DJ is chipped and worn to the spine ends). Bound in cloth boards with titles present to the spine and front board. Boards have light shelf-wear present to the extremities. Bookstore stamp present to the FFEP. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. A young woman named Patricia finds herself in the ambiguous space between marriage and divorce. The novel is set in New York City during the Jazz Age, and it explores the themes of female independence, sexual liberation, and the changing social mores of the time. A thread that runs throughout the story for Patricia is profound loss resulting in loneliness. After Patricia's open marriage fails, alcohol induced binges, multiple one night stands, and affairs become a mainstay. There is also the cultural dissonance between Victorian morality, carried into the new century, and the emerging sexual freedom that encompasses the permissibility of casual sex. Also, as a distraction from her devastating losses, Patricia "buys clothes she can't afford; she gets facials and has her hair done; she listens to songs on repeat while wearily wondering why heartache always seems to bookend love." The book also became a movie, “The Divorcee, ” starring Norma Shearer, who won an Oscar for her role. EB; 8vo 8"-9" tall; 272 pages.
First published in 1929, this book was seen as scandalous in its unflinching look at a certain class of women: ex-wives who?d been divorced or simply abandoned by their husbands. In spite of the permissiveness of the Roaring Twenties, society was not necessarily kind to women who didn?t have the cachet or security of a husband.
The book is unflinching at the difficulties Patricia goes through while divesting herself of her increasingly vicious and unforgiving husband. She struggles to maintain her individuality while negotiating very tricky waters indeed. It remains powerful, even if standards towards divorce and divorcées have been relaxed considerably in the last 80 years.