Summer Reading - The Last Original Wife by Dorothea Benton Frank

The Last Original Wife
By Dorothea Benton Frank

 

Dorothea Benton Frank has become one of my favorite authors for summer reading. She came to my attention over 10 years ago when my sister shared the first Lowcountry novel, Sullivan's Island. Part mystery, part Chick Lit, it introduced the author's main setting and theme – the Lowcountry of South Carolina and a woman in her prime facing a life changing circumstance of some kind. The woman typically heads home, to the Lowcountry, to find the emotional fortitude to face her situation.  The Lowcountry of South Carolina is also often reflected in the titles– Sullivan’s Island, Plantation, Isle of Palms, Pawley’s Island, and Folly Beach.

Leslie Anne Greene Carter is the main character of Frank's latest novel, The Last Original Wife. An unusual facet of this novel is that it's told in alternating chapters from Leslie and her husband, Wesley.  It is heavily weighted toward Leslie’s point of view but we also get Wesley's point of view and get to see how it changes over the course of the book.  Wesley may be "the bad guy" but he's not a totally bad guy and he grows over the course of the novel, just as Leslie does.  Unfortunately for the marriage, they are growing apart.

The novel starts out at the offices of a high priced therapist in Atlanta where a woman begs Leslie to sell her Leslie’s time with the therapist after finding her husband in bed with two of his daughter’s teenage friends.  Leslie tells her she can have the session if Leslie can have the name of the woman’s plastic surgeon and, by the way, divorce the bastard.  “Take all his money.  Every last nickel.  None of that divide by two bullshit.”  They exchange cards and the woman decides she doesn’t need the session after all.

Leslie and Wesley's own inciting incident is a vacation to Edinburgh, so Wesley can play golf, where Leslie ends up falling through an open man hole while taking pictures.  Wesley doesn’t notice until twenty minutes later when he gets back to the hotel with his friends.  Wesley blames Leslie for her accident and Leslie is angry at Wesley for leaving her alone in the hospital with his friend’s new young wife while he goes golfing. I suppose if falling in a manhole and breaking your teeth and arm as well as gaining numerous cuts and bruises while your husband walks on doesn't wake you up, then nothing will.

Leslie decides it's time to take an extended vacation down to see her brother, Harlan, in Charleston. There she reconnects with an old flame, and reads up on Josephine Pinckney, who owned the house where Leslie's brother lives. She is called home when Wesley is diagnosed with cancer and she agrees to go take care of him during his biopsy surgery. Wesley tries to convince her to come home permanently and the novel comes full circle to visit the therapist we saw in the beginning.

This novel is sort of like a gossip session with girlfriends that you don't have to feel guilty about because the characters only exist in the book. There's a lot going on. Light, but not too light, a perfect summer read. Enjoy!