Synopses & Reviews
"His Lovely Wife is told in understated yet succinctly lovely language. By delving deeply into Ellen's life, Dewberry reveals the challenges many women face as they look for a meaningful place in their relationships and the world."--USA Today
When tall, blond, and beautiful Ellen Baxter enters the Paris Ritz the day before Princess Diana dies, shes mistaken for Diana by the paparazzi. The next morning, as Ellens older, Nobel-laureate husband attends a physics conference, she goes to the site of the fatal crash and finds an uncharacteristic photograph of Diana. Surprised by how deeply the death has affected her, Ellen pockets the photo. As she hears Dianas voice in her head, she begins to understand the parallels between their livesand she fervently wants to find the man who took the photograph.
His Lovely Wife is a complex, surprising novel that explores a culture that celebrates women for their beautythen exacts a terrible toll.
Whatever [Ellen's] fate, she's a character who readers will remember and sympathize with."The Washington Post Book World
"[Ellen] is unaffectedly charming, insightful and hilarious. Her retorts and observations, which she mostly keeps to herself, can be laugh-out-loud funny or like a punch in the gut . . . Dewberry raises provocative questions about the utility of fantasy and why people obsess over celebrities."--Chicago Tribune
ELIZABETH DEWBERRY has written three previous novels, including Sacrament of Lies. Her plays have been produced in a variety of venues. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with her husband, Robert Olen Butler.
Review
"In a daring turn of ventriloquism, Elizabeth Dewberry has crafted a strange and brazen meditation on life and romance." Stewart O'Nan
Review
"In the moment it takes a camera flash to wink, Ellen Baxter discovers that while science may have room for ever expanding theories, her own life is surrounded by borders that can be bridged only by listening to the past. Readers will slip inside her skin and long, as she does, for possibility." Jo Ann Mapson
Review
"Lyrical literary stylist Elizabeth Dewberry surprises with His Lovely Wife – sure to climb bestseller lists everywhere. Wrenching and inventive, this is her best novel yet." Lee Smith
Review
"Elizabeth Dewberry gives eloquent voice to a world of women whose stories often go untold: those who feel defined by the more powerful men in their lives and recognize this with growing despair. With the beauty of language and nuance of gestures, she captures the unspoken yet profoundest truths between husband and wife. I predict His Lovely Wife will find a huge audience and grab those lucky readers by the heart." Amy Tan
Review
"His Lovely Wife is told in understated yet succinctly lovely language. By delving deeply into Ellen's life, Dewberry reveals the challenges many women face as they look for a meaningful place in their relationships and the world." USA Today
Synopsis
In August 1997, accompanying her Nobel laureate husband to a physics conference in Paris, tall, blond, and beautiful Ellen Baxter is momentarily mistaken for Princess Diana when she arrives at the Paris Ritz hotel. One photographer realizes she is not Diana and helps her escape the paparazzi swarming around her, but photographs her anyway.
The next day Ellen runs into the photographer again at the site of Diana's death and finds a photo he has left there – a fierce, very uncharacteristic photo of Diana. Ellen pockets the photo. She is shocked by how deeply moved and shaken she is by Diana's death. As she gazes at that photo, she begins hearing Diana's voice in her head and realizes how much her own life parallels Diana's. And she fervently wants to find that photographer.
Suddenly Ellen is forced to come to grips with all she has compromised by being a lovely wife. Is she falling in love with the photographer or does she simply want him to provide her with a new image of herself?
This complex, surprising novel uses string theory to weave together two women's lives and to explore a culture that celebrates women for their beauty – then exacts a terrible toll.
Synopsis
Tall, blond, and beautiful Ellen Baxter is mistaken for Princess Diana by the paparazzi just days before Diana's fatal car crash, and when her Nobel-laureate husband attends a physics conference, she visits the site of the accident, only to find an uncharacteristic photograph of Diana that leads her to the man who shot the photo and on a journey of self-exploration. Reprint.
Synopsis
"Elizabeth Dewberry gives eloquent voice to a world of women whose stories often go untold: those who feel defined by the more powerful men in their lives and recognize this with growing despair. With the beauty of language and nuance of gestures, she captures the unspoken yet profoundest truths between husband and wife. I predict His Lovely Wife
will find a huge audience and grab those lucky readers by the heart."--Amy TanIn August 1997, accompanying her Nobel laureate husband to a physics conference in Paris, tall, blond, and beautiful Ellen Baxter is momentarily mistaken for Princess Diana when she arrives at the Paris Ritz hotel. One photographer realizes she is not Diana and helps her escape the paparazzi swarming around her, but photographs her anyway.
The next day Ellen runs into the photographer again at the site of Dianas death and finds a photo he has left there a fierce, very uncharacteristic photo of Diana. Ellen pockets the photo. She is shocked by how deeply moved and shaken she is by Dianas death. As she gazes at that photo, she begins hearing Dianas voice in her head and realizes how much her own life parallels Dianas. And she fervently wants to find that photographer.
Suddenly Ellen is forced to come to grips with all she has compromised by being a lovely wife. Is she falling in love with the photographer or does she simply want him to provide her with a new image of herself?
This complex, surprising novel uses string theory to weave together two womens lives and to explore a culture that celebrates women for their beauty then exacts a terrible toll.
Synopsis
When tall, blond, and beautiful Ellen Baxter enters the Paris Ritz the day before Princess Diana dies, shes mistaken for Diana by the paparazzi. The next morning, as Ellens older, Nobel-laureate husband attends a physics conference, she goes to the site of the fatal crash and finds an uncharacteristic photograph of Diana. Surprised by how deeply the death has affected her, Ellen pockets the photo. As she hears Dianas voice in her head and begins to understand the parallels between their lives, she tracks down the person who took the photograph, hoping that this man who deals in surfaces can penetrate her beauty, as he did Dianas, and help her love the woman inside.
Elizabeth Dewberrys complex, surprising novel uses string theory to weave together two womens lives and explore a culture that celebrates women for their beautythen exacts a terrible toll.
Synopsis
HIS LOVELY WIFE is the story of Ellen Baxter, a beautiful woman who, to her surprise-because she was not a Princess Diana fanatic-finds that Diana's death affects her so deeply that it triggers an identity crisis. She's staying at the Paris Ritz on the weekend Diana died because her much-older husband, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, is attending a professional meeting there, and after the crash, she begins to realize that her life parallels Diana's in more ways than she has previously articulated, even to herself, the most important being that almost everything in her life is what it is because of who she married. As she begins to ask some of the same questions about the relationships between passion and compassion, connection and independence that Diana, the ultimate lovely wife, was asking in her last years, she also pursues an attraction to a member of the paparazzi who was in pursuit of Diana when she died. And as she tries to tell her story, to listen to her own voice, she begins to hear Diana's voice as well, and Diana-or her ghost or, perhaps, my character's imaginative re-creation of her-becomes a major character in the book. Like Diana's, Ellen's is a story about what it's like to be a beautiful-but-not-quite-beautiful-enough woman (because she finds it impossible to feel beautiful enough) who loves an emotionally unavailable man and tries, perhaps too late, to create an identity for herself in terms other than those her marriage and the culture have provided for her.
About the Author
Elizabeth Dewberry has written three previous novels, including Sacrament of Lies. Her plays have been produced in a variety of venues. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with her husband, Robert Olen Butler.