Ooooh I really rated this one! Classics just hit differently for me and I don't know why I've stopped reading them as much – I so enjoyed this 1929 (and recently reissued) book about an ex-wife in New York. It's at times brutal, at times moving and poignant, but always perceptive and interesting. Some of the writing was absolutely brilliant, and overall I was a big fan of how contemporary this felt, while also being so wonderfully 20s (real speakeasies!) and wonderfully full of descriptions of clothes. One I already want to reread.

I had high hopes for this book and I was not one bit disappointed. The writing was sharp and immersive and the book as a whole was thoroughly enjoyable.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC

Really pleased to have found this book and thank you to the publisher for providing a copy!
Ex-Wife was so ahead of its time, it’s hard to believe this was written in the 1920’s as it’s as fresh and relevant as anything contemporary. It is emotional and devastating and you will feel for Patricia and read this again and again!

It's an excellent book, there's fun and a lot of good banters. The portrait of Young Bright Things like they were that reminds us that women were still the weakest link
Due to health issues cannot write a proper review now even if I enjoyed this book. A proper review will follow
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I felt like this started strong and then the more it progressed it became more and more like a fever dream and extremely repetitive.

Thank you Faber & Faber for the Arc! I can’t wait to get a beautiful copy for my bookshelf!

I found this a book of two halves.

At first I was captivated by, what felt like discovering a Nora Ephron of the 1920s with its sharp and caustic presentation. Patricia/Pat is a woman we would recognise today as contemporary, albeit with a very different societal backdrop. She is 20 in New York and married (in what she perceives as an open marriage) with a great social life and a professional job in advertising. The marriage falls apart because of her honesty and her husband unable to accept any type of equality between the sexes.

Heartbroken and obsessed by Peter (the ex-husband) she nonetheless becomes pragmatic and takes a flat share launching a life of independence. So far so good and I lapped up the narrative which gave a unique social history.

Perhaps it was my reading of the novel, perhaps it was the development of the story but I found the momentum dropped off as Patricia invested herself in a variety of available and unavailable men and her fellow ex-wives all sought to get re-married and, for me it lost the whip-smart feel of the beginning.

Nonetheless I was fascinated and intrigued by "experiencing" a life I thought a later generation had invented writ large. Plus ca change!

With thanks to #NetGalley and #Faber for allowing me to read and review

Marvelous Mrs. Maisel meets Sex and the City in the roaring 20s, with Fitzgerald-ian elements and dashes of Wodehouse but make it Ursula Parrott.

Peppered with a hefty dose of Scotch and Highballs, the nighttime glitter of post-war NYC, the fallacy of men and the bonds of women, Ursula Parrott's utterly compelling autobiographical novel 'Ex-Wife' takes us to the messy reality of the 1920s (upper-class) American woman, for whom the newly won rights and freedom, rather than providing a bold new start, in their first flush merely chiseled the tiniest of holes in the patriarchy; to a young woman trying to stay afloat in a world that tells her to be "modern", to freely take and taste all the delights of being young and beautiful, allowing her to build a career, but that still requires a woman to sing for her supper and still only guarantees her the best stability, security, love (and dare I say respectability?) as a man's wife.

"Freedom from men? Which of us is free who is emotionally absorbed in any man?"

Parrott, who declared herself as not being a feminist, takes a bleak view of the lot of her fellow females but underneath all that cynicism there is an undying tenor of hope, because for all the heartbreak and shattered illusions her heroine remains a romantic in search of true love and unapologetically true to her (past) choices in life. And I don't think Parrott herself wished she had been born in any other time, for all her resentment towards the 'feminists'.

My only quibble with 'Ex-Wife' is the (slight) element of xenophobia and anti-semitism, where our protagonist Patricia explicitly notes the ethnicity of her rapist, a Russian Jew, when in no other instance has Parrott made her even allude to the ethnic background of the men she has associated with. Sure, you can see it as a bit of unconscious era-norm xenophobia/anti-semitism but I still think it is worth noting.

Overall, I recommend reading Ursula Parrott's 'Ex-Wife' - her words are engrossing, the tale compelling. You want to follow protagonist Patricia and see where she goes and hope, wherever it is, it is a place of happiness and contentment.

Absorbing 20s divorce/single working woman saga.

Never heard of the book, never heard of the author, but I'm now a fan. And I also want to see the film based on this. Reading the short biography of Parrott at the start, it felt like I was about to delve inside a life of a hundred years ago and the world of the Flapper.

What a reality it was. Two 20-somethings in a marriage where they're struggling to get by, a slip up and confession and it's recriminations, guilt, abuse, separation and love lost... but the following chapters take our now Ex Wife through life in the 1920s, the clothes, the expectations, the society, the drinking, the morals. Wow.

While I know this doesn't mirror the author's life, I can only assume she's written herself into some of the characters, their witty bon mots and choices, their evenings of debauchery and fun.

Eye-opening and flowed like water (or gin?) through the eyes. Love a period piece and bit of history, this felt like a window to the time and place.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

The fact that this book was published in 1929 is utterly mind blowing to me. It is so utterly timeless!

Patricia is 24 years old when her husband decides he doesn’t want to be married anymore. She resists until she can’t and moves in with a divorced friend. From there she starts LIVING. Making enough money in advertising to keep her in fine fashion, spending time out on the town with her friends and having dalliances with whatever men take her fancy.

Peter, the ex-husband, is truly awful. Just despicable every time he turns up! And I think one of the joys of this book is seeing Patricia really live her life after him. In a way I maybe naively didn’t believe women could in the 1920s? But this is New York baby!

This is utterly delicious. I mean it is extremely sad in parts and your heart aches for Patty, don’t get me wrong. I’m just delighted that this has been republished and I had the chance to read it. I would really recommend you read it too!

I had heard a lot about this novel when McNally 're-published it and was keen to read it, but it was difficult to get a copy here, so I was very pleased to hear that Faber were going to be 're-publishing too.

It is the semi autobiographical account of Pat, who starts off separated from her husband, and becomes an ex-wife halfway through. Set in 1920's New York, she hits the town; moving in with another ex-wife they work during the day, and evenings are spent with a series of men in restaurants and spearheaded where a lot of alcohol is consumed. she is desperate to hold on to her husband initially, but as the novel progresses she begins to see that the relationship is doomed.

It felt quite cynical and jaded, but hearing about the authors life, that is unsurprising, and despite this it is witty and largely easy to read, though I did find the middle sagged a bit. The setting was interesting to me, it's not one I read about very often. I'm very glad I finally got to read it, and it's one I'm sure to re-read at some point in the future.

*Many thanks to Netgalley and Faber for a review copy in exchange for an honest opinion.*

'This book is not so much a celebration of the unconventional woman as it is a roadmap of the dangers that might befall her' [foreword]

It's mid-1920s, New York, and Patricia has become an Ex-Wife, 'Not every woman who used to be married is one. There are women about whom it is more significant to know...this or that..then to know they were once married to someone else'. The Great War has ended, women have finally got the right to vote and divorce is a straight-forward thing. No longer do men or women need to feel that they are forever lumbered with a mediocre choice or a 'handbrake' to independence. So, although Pat didn't seek a divorce, she gets a great job in advertising, shares an apartment with a fellow divorcee, and hits the town every night. However, despite being doggedly social and pickling her liver with scotch endlessly, she is not only a tad lonely, she realises that living with all the independence of a man, doesn't garner the same respect as one. The social hypocrisy dawns on her, 'The principal thing that relieving women from the dullness of domesticity did, was to relieve men from any necessity of offering stability in return for love, fidelity and so on. Women used to have status, a relative security. Now they have the status of any prostitute, success while their looks hold out'. Patricia comes to terms with her new label, over time, but sadly at the cost of 'dewy' youth.

Ursuala's son, in the book's afterword, describes his mother's story as confessional. To have lived such a life, as well as to publish such a story, a hundred years ago, gives some perspective on just how outlandish it must've been, and yet how nothing much has changed - underscored by the fact that it is being re-published. I found Ex-Wife such a fascinating insight into the glamourous, yet tumultuous times of that era, as well as the courage to be so forthright in her novel.

Glad this autofiction from the 1920’s was re-published. Ex-Wife is the upsetting mid twenties adulting of a woman who has early relationship trauma. Concerned with the sex lives, romances and friendships of women, Ex-Wife is a delayed coming of age of an initially unsympathetic narrator. Portrayal of clothes and career life of the jobbing writer in magazine advertising notable, as are scraps of conversation. note: Brief non-explicit racist references to Harlem social life as experienced by the white narrator.

I enjoyed Ex-Wife tremendously and whilst many novels are heralded for being ahead of their time, this one genuinely fits the bill. The beginning is so funny and self-aware and I absolutely adored Pat as a protagonist and narrator. I will admit that I felt it started to sag from around two thirds in, mainly because I didn’t particularly buy Pat’s quite sudden adoration for Noel, but I’m a massive cynic. Incidentally, Noel’s wife as a character was very well drawn and memorable. Overall, I would definitely recommend this novel as a bold precursor to the darkly funny sad girl millennial era.

As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll forget this book. The most modern, the most of its time, the most universal, the most painful pleasure of a novel. I adored it.

I have been recommending this book non-stop! It was such a funny, raucous, poignant read. It reminded me of Elaine Dundy’s The Dud Avocado and I completely fell in love with the charming, yet flawed characters.

"The feeling of running, of having been running endlessly, so that I was breathless, yet must go on running forever, seemed to sum up my life."

A ball, and a blast, a comedy and a tragedy. Set in 1920s New York, and originally published in 1929, this book will get inevitable comparisons to F Scott Fitzgerald (the drinking and misbehaving being very Great Gatsby-esque) and Dorothy Parker (for the wryly funny, self-aware female narrator), but what it actually felt like to me was a precursor to Nora Ephron's 'Heartburn'. It's the story of a woman who is sadly too clever for her own good - or rather, for the constraining patriarchal society she lives in - who must define and redefine herself after the collapse of her marriage. Standing on the cusp of modernity, but still with the forbidding 19th Century hanging over her past, Patricia tries to see herself as a character, to comment on her life as if it's happening to someone else; and yet she yet stays aware, with a quiet creeping dread that bursts through the comic facade, that she isn't sure who she really is, and all her witty lines and mannerisms, her deflections and deceptions, are techniques designed to stop herself, as much as anyone else, from finding out what's under the surface. The ex-wife is a "persona", as the ingenue was and the grand dame will be: but beneath this mask, what else? And why was the mask put on in the first place?

This is also a love story, as much as it's a portrait of a time and of a certain kind of "new woman". But it's equally a story of the self, like Rachel Cusk's semi-absent, identity-less narrator in 'Outline', the bohemian vagrants of Jean Rhys's early novels, and the many "lost young woman" books that have sprung up in the wake of Conversations with Friends and Fleabag. As a librarian, when people come looking for books in that genre, I've usually recommended writers like Eve Babitz as "originators" of the trope, but Ursula Parrott will definitely be joining that list, and 'Ex-Wife' would work well in a display targeted at readers of novelists like Coco Mellors, Monica Heisey, and Halle Butler..

I’ve heard so much about this book and Ursula Parrot but it was impossible to get a copy here in the UK. I was so pleased to hear about this new Faber edition and thank you so much Faber for letting me read this netgalley proof.

A delightful slice of New York City in the roaring 20s, Ex-Wife tells the story of Patricia and her marriage to Peter. It’s a story of love, marriage, relationships and the ups and downs of life.

Patricia narrates, recalling the four years of marriage to Peter and how it came to a messy end (both played a part but Peter is a real piece of work). We follow her as she grieves the demise of her marriage, befriending the wonderful Lucia in the process. By the end of the journey I was so enamoured with Patricia, I really felt for her and the sacrifices she made.

The story and its themes feel modern almost one hundred years after its first publication, which says a lot for how far we’ve travelled in terms of the way women are viewed and treated. It’s a compelling read which packs an emotional punch!

Thank you Faber for the netgalley proof of  "Ex-Wife" by Ursula Parrott , first published in the 1920ies, now rediscovered. I absolutely loved it, on my shelf of favorite novels of the year!

Spiked with great, smart one liners and wit, it reminded me a lot of the incomparable Dorothy Parker. Somewhat autobiographical Parrott describes her own life in 1920ties NY  through Patricia,   a new type of woman, recent divorcee in her twenties,  with a broken heart and career of her own plus a neverending parade of men taking her and her girlfriends out every day. How on earth did they survive on so little sleep and so much booze ? I fell in love with the  language of the novel and of course Pat and her girlfriends, whose chief goal was to stand by each other thru thick and thin and to be married again by age 30 , preferable to a wealthy man. A fabulous read, fresh and true even after 100 years, go out and buy it when it is published in August.

The premise of this was super interesting, and while the plot was intriguing, the writing style was a little hard to get into. The time jumps and retelling of the same story felt repetitive and I struggled to connect to the main character at all, which was such a shame because I was really looking forward to this one!