Take My Husband: A Novel

When Laurel hears that her husband, Doug, has been in a car accident, her first thought isn’t terror, it’s hope. After almost thirty years, Laurel’s marriage is fraying, and Doug has become intolerably helpless, dependent, and needy. Even worse, he’s forbidding her to fly to California for the birth of their first grandchild. Laurel yearns for freedom and a brand-new, unencumbered life—maybe even with a new love, like the handsome grandfather she sees every week at Trader Joe’s. When it turns out that Doug is essentially unharmed, Laurel resolves to hasten his death herself. With the support and good ideas from her co-worker Charlie, she begins her attempts to kill off Doug, but maintaining the necessary level of determination isn’t as easy as Laurel expects.

This is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek, darkly humorous novel, but the plot twists are so implausible that even a reader willing to go along for the ride might have difficulty staying with it. More problematic is Laurel herself, whose attitude toward Doug swings wildly. There’s little coherence—and Doug is rendered so unpleasantly that readers will find it hard not to want to step into the novel and off him themselves.