Secret Lives of Second Wives

Rating:
Summary: Singing the second wife blues.
Review: Immigration attorney Lynn Bartlett's first marriage was a disaster. For approximately a decade, she avoided serious alliances though that made the nights lonely. Tech business executive Jackson Hughes is divorced also, but unlike Lynn he has two children, supposedly adults. Lynn and Jackson are perfect for each other and marry. They settle in Silicon Valley, which is ideal, as his company is near and she has a strong client base in the green card professionals who lost employment due to the downturn in dot.com

One year after they tie the knot, Lynn throws a fiftieth birthday party for her spouse. Though contented, she is not totally into the gala as she finds a Russian scientist more interesting than her husband. She also detests having his children around as they treat her like a fungus; even worse his son plans to move in with them. His first wife has made a martyred appearance that deserves an Oscar. Only her peers at the Anne Boleyn Society provide any relief for the beleaguered second wife.

THE SECRET LIVES OF SECOND WIVES is an amusing often-melancholy character study. Lynn and Jackson work on (or ignore) family issues that make them seem real. Her clients also add depth to Lynn's character. However, his children behave so blatantly and appallingly nasty towards Lynn, readers will wonder why Jackson fails to divorce the duo. His first wife is subtler in her tactics so that she comes across as a sneaky, nasty, but clever schemer. Catherine Todd provides a solid tale that could have been a great novel if she had created realistic antagonists.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: An amusing often-melancholy character study
Review: Immigration attorney Lynn Bartlett's first marriage was a disaster. For approximately a decade, she avoided serious alliances though that made the nights lonely. Tech business executive Jackson Hughes is divorced also, but unlike Lynn he has two children, supposedly adults. Lynn and Jackson are perfect for each other and marry. They settle in Silicon Valley, which is ideal, as his company is near and she has a strong client base in the green card professionals who lost employment due to the downturn in dot.com

One year after they tie the knot, Lynn throws a fiftieth birthday party for her spouse. Though contented, she is not totally into the gala as she finds a Russian scientist more interesting than her husband. She also detests having his children around as they treat her like a fungus; even worse his son plans to move in with them. His first wife has made a martyred appearance that deserves an Oscar. Only her peers at the Anne Boleyn Society provide any relief for the beleaguered second wife.

THE SECRET LIVES OF SECOND WIVES is an amusing often-melancholy character study. Lynn and Jackson work on (or ignore) family issues that make them seem real. Her clients also add depth to Lynn's character. However, his children behave so blatantly and appallingly nasty towards Lynn, readers will wonder why Jackson fails to divorce the duo. His first wife is subtler in her tactics so that she comes across as a sneaky, nasty, but clever schemer. Catherine Todd provides a solid tale that could have been a great novel if she had created realistic antagonists.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Singing the second wife blues.
Review: Lynn Bartlett is a bright and beautiful immigration lawyer in her forties who embarked on her second marriage with great expectations. Her new husband, Jack Hughes, is a kind, loving, funny, and intelligent man. Unfortunately, when Lynn married Jack, she underestimated the problems that she would have with Jack's grasping ex-wife and his two spoiled adult children.

Catherine Todd, in her funny and entertaining new book, "Secret Lives of Second Wives," explores the well-worn territory of how excess baggage from a first marriage sometimes drags a second marriage down. Todd's novel is not a rehash of old material, however. It is a refreshingly original story of a woman who is self-confident and comfortable in her own skin. Lynn is not willing to settle for second best either in her professional or her personal life. Her husband, laden with guilt about how he may have shortchanged his first family, incurs financial and psychological burdens that threaten to sabotage his relationship with Lynn.

Todd imbues Lynn's and Jack's story with a light and satirical touch. She takes amusing potshots at the materialistic and shallow lifestyle of certain Californians. The dialogue in "Secret Lives" is sharp and clever and the writing is crisp and fast-paced. Yet, underneath all of the lighthearted banter, there are serious undertones in this novel about the complexity of family relationships and the importance of commitment and compromise in a marriage. Catherine Todd's breezy prose style and her intelligent treatment of the dynamics of second marriages make "Secret Lives of Second Wives" a first-rate and very appealing contemporary novel.