by Ore Agbaje-Williams
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2023
192 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Long-standing tensions between a husband, his wife, and her best friend finally come to a breaking point in this sharp domestic comedy of manners, told brilliantly over the course of one day.
What if your two favorite people hated each other with a passion?
The wife has it all. A big house in a nice neighborhood, a ride-or-die snarky best friend, Temi, with whom to laugh about facile men, and a devoted husband who loves her above all else—even his distate for Temi.
On a seemingly normal day, Temi comes over to spend a lazy afternoon with the wife: drinking wine, eating snacks, and laughing caustically about the husband's shortcomings. But when the husband comes home and a series of confessions are made, the wife's two confidantes are suddenly forced to jockey for their positions, throwing everyone's integrity into question—and their long-drawn-out territorial dance, carefully constructed over years, into utter chaos.
Told in three taut, mesmerizing parts—the wife, the husband, the best friend—over the course of one day, The Three of Us is a subversely comical, wildly astute, and painfully compulsive triptych of domestic life that explores cultural truths, what it means to defy them, and the fine line between compromise and betrayal when it comes to ourselves and the people we're meant to love.
"[A] striking, often wickedly funny debut ... Agbaje-Williams brilliantly captures the inner monologue as well as the conversational style of each of the three through which their whole cultural milieu takes shape around them ... . An original and potent comedy of manners with an ingenious final twist." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The tightly wound plot drops a few revelations along the way, calling into question what the characters—and the reader—think they know. When two people vie for the attention of a third, who will win? How far will each go? Agbaje-Williams keeps readers wondering until the end." —BookPage (starred review)
"[An] intoxicating debut...It's delicious to watch the characters' long-fermenting tensions come to the fore. It lands as a discerning debut from an author who knows a thing or two (or three) about the ever-shifting dynamics of intimacy." —Publishers Weekly
"This wry comedy of manners unfolds in a trio of engagingly self-absorbed, revealingly unreliable first person narratives. Agbaje-Williams sharply renders each character's unique voice, building depth and tension as the story is told and retold." —Booklist
"Debut novelist Agbaje-Williams brilliantly captures the toxic dynamics of an emotional train wreck that inevitably comes from the imbalance of a fragile marriage threatened by the presence of a conniving third party." —Library Journal
"Taking place over the course of a single day, this bold, sharp debut novel explores the intrigue of the ménage à trois in a comedy of manners about the tensions between a husband, his wife, and her best friend." —NYLON
"A biting comedy of manners with a delightfully simple, but incredibly fertile, premise ... . Over three acts, as the thin walls of tact and civility begin to erode, all manner of scabrously hilarious confessions and accusations burst through." —Lit Hub
"Devouring this bold, brilliant satire was refreshing and confronting and completely entertaining. So much is achieved in Agbaje-Williams' writing: the nuances that make even our closest relationships uncomfortable, the tension of a shifting perspective, the anarchy provoked by a single cunning comment. Beguiling and cutting and admirable—I loved it." —Ashley Audrain, author of The Push
"The Three of Us is explosive... . What rocked me was the naked examination of that coveted construct we call innocence... . How easily it's weaponized and made indistinguishable from guilt; and how the people who are honest about this are the only ones with a real chance at wellness and wholeness. The Three of Us read, wrote, and erased me. Then, it gave me back to myself, giggling and nodding my head. What a keen mind this story comes from. What a calm power this story holds." —Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets
This information about The Three of Us was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ore Agbaje-Williams is a British Nigerian writer and book editor from London. The Three of Us is her first novel.
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