Critics' Opinion:
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Published Apr 2010
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Georgie and Peter, very much in love, move to London with their three children. Once there, Georgie's dormant acting career takes off and she wins the role of Dora Jordan in a one-woman show. Dora Jordan was the most famous comic actress of the eighteenth century (she had thirteen illegitimate children, including ten by the future king of England).
As Georgie rehearses for her part, she becomes increasingly drawn to Dora Jordan, who she sees as a working mother with struggles exactly like her own. And when Georgie can no longer fight her attraction to the playwright, she begins an affair with tragic results.
Narrated by Peter, a failed-writer -turned-businessman, My Wife's Affair is about infidelity, passion, duty, and about finally getting what you want and then wanting still more.
"Starred Review. Woodruff...leaves not a dry eye in the house in this gripping ode to theater and the love it can command—and crush...It's brutal and lovely." - Publishers Weekly
"[M]elodramatic foreshadowing seems too strong for the story." - Library Journal
"A slight story, thinly characterized, but narrated with some poise." - Kirkus Reviews
"Woodruff soars in this searing chronicle of the dissolution of a marriage and a family." - Booklist
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Nancy Woodruff received her MFA from Columbia University. She taught writing at Columbia University and SUNY/Purchase before moving to London in 1997 for 8 years. Woodruff currently teaches at NYU and lives in Brooklyn. This is her second book following Someone Else's Child 2000
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