My Husband, written by debut novelist Maud Ventura and translated from the French by Emma Ramadan, is a sexually charged contemporary drama, crackling with marital intrigue and domestic unease. The story, set in a Paris suburb, unfolds over the course of a single eventful week, and is narrated by a high school teacher who is besotted with her husband and fears his betrayal to the point of near insanity. Blessed with beauty and intellect, she works as a French-English translator for a publishing house in addition to her teaching job.
The couple remains enigmatic, unnamed protagonists in this darkly humorous story of a woman's obsessive infatuation with the man she fell in love with 15 years ago and her willingness to go to any lengths to make sure her marriage survives. Not only is he handsome and successful, but they also have two well-mannered children and a stunning home, an absurdly perfect trifecta of good fortune that only exacerbates her intense paranoia about losing it all.
Ventura is clearly enjoying herself as she skillfully mines the wife's overactive imagination for comedy, while also acknowledging the suffering that results from her chronic self-doubt. My Husband is an incisive character study of a woman's complicated interiority, her manic, manipulative behavior concealed beneath a perfectly composed exterior. The author's finely crafted scenes reveal so much more than the narrator intends to share, and she expertly ratchets up the tension until nerves are unbearably frayed, both the narrator's and the readers'.
Ventura's cleverly constructed, one-sided portrait of a marriage delivers a breathtaking conclusion that is as unexpected as it is deviously brilliant. --Shahina Piyarali, reviewer