The Good Wife

Patty Dickerson is The Good Wife in this novel by Stewart O'Nan. She leaves early from a night of drinking with her husband Tommy and his best friend Gary. The next day she receives a call from her husband informing her that the two men have been arrested. Patty's life will never be the same. Pregnant and confused she begins negotiating the justice system, knowing that things will work out because her husband could not have committed such a heinous crime (the murder of an elderly woman during the commission of a robbery). Patty's optimism is dashed when Tommy gets charged with murder and is sentenced to 25 years to life.
The novel is simply narrated in Patty's voice and it tells the mundane story of the rest of her life, her search for decent work, the difficulties she faces as a single mum, the struggle to manage her always precarious finances. Through it all she tries to stay hopeful and remains faithful to Tommy though all his friends desert him. Her regular visits with him are what keep her going. When life gets hard she reminds herself how much harder it is for Tommy. Unlike Patty who is blinded by love I am not 100 percent convinced that Tommy didn't do it. O'Nan deliberately keeps the facts ambiguous and we know only what Patty sees.
In the end Tommy is released after serving 28 years. The story leaves him struggling to make the adjustment to life outside the penal system and to make sense of a world that is so different from the one he remembers. I found this passage particularly poignant:

He wakes up every day at six o'clock sharp, no matter how late he stays up, takes an eight minute shower and has their bed made before Patty can dry her hair. The top of his dresser is empty except for his watch and wallet, returned to the same spots every night, lined up square with the edge. His drawers are just as neat, the piles precise, his rolled socks all in a row.

28 years of incarceration are evident in his regimentation. (I admit I found myself thinking, but only for a fleeting instant, that a stint in the slammer might be just what is required to cure my husband of his slovenly habits.)
O'Nan writes in an authentic voice that continued to resonate with me after I put the book back on the shelf. He tackles complex social issues in simple prose. I look forward to reading his other books.