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Peeking out from under the flashy red hat on the cover of Elizabeth Dewberry's new novel is the distinctly recognizable chin and mouth of Princess Diana -- a woman who knew better than most what it meant to be "his lovely wife."
Dewberry's novel grew out of her own irritation with being introduced as the lovely wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler. A respected author in her own right, she began to see that despite her own accomplishments, people often view her as the beautiful spouse of a famous man.
In His Lovely Wife,
Ellen Baxter is in Paris with her husband, Lawrence, a Nobel laureate who is attending a physics conference. She has spent the past 15 years raising his son from a former marriage and doing community service.
Early on, it's evident that Lawrence is emotionally distant and that Ellen is unhappy. The novel's tone is highly contemplative as Ellen tries to sort through her feelings for him and struggles with her place in the world.
Her story is told against the backdrop of the death of Princess Diana and her lover, Dodi Fayed, in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Ellen and Lawrence are staying at the Ritz. So are Diana and Dodi. Ellen has seen them in the hotel dining room, and she sat across from Diana in the hotel's hair salon.
Though not obsessed with Diana, Ellen finds similarities between the princess's unhappy life and her own.
One of Ellen's connections to Diana is photographer Max Kafka, who was in the Paris tunnel moments after the crash. Max leaves a photo he took of Diana at a makeshift memorial shrine on a Paris street. Ellen takes the photo. His name and address are on the back.
Ellen feels a connection to him and considers seducing him. Is she really in love with him, or does she just want to believe he can appreciate the Ellen that lives inside her beautiful body and face?
Much of His Lovely Wife is taken up by Ellen's internal meditations on life and love, as well as similar discussions she has in her mind with Diana. Ellen feels Diana was used as "a broodmare" by the royal family, but she also gets irritated by Diana's relentless search for love and approval. "Love isn't what she had with Charles, who she left, with Dodi, who lied to her, with Hasnat, who wouldn't be seen in public with her ... Surely she doesn't really believe that holding an AIDS baby in your arms for ten minutes, while being photographed, constitutes love."
Diana's entanglement in Ellen's psyche gives the novel a noir quality that is enhanced by the melancholic atmosphere in Paris in the days after Diana's death.
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.
His Lovely Wife
By Elizabeth Dewberry
Harcourt, 282 pp., $24
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