Awards

• Long-listed for International Dublin Literary Award 2018 (Ireland)
• Short-listed for Australian Book Design Awards, Series 2017 (Australia)

Overview

‘He had never married and had never been with one woman for long; he had always remained a collector of first times.’ Edward Landauer, a brilliant scientist in his forties, meets a beautiful young woman. She is the love of his life and, when the two marry, he is the happiest man in the world. But Ruth’s beauty and youth cannot stop him growing older. After the birth of their long-awaited son, the ‘happiness, delicate like filigree’ turns into something new, and Edward no longer recognises his great romance nor the woman who induced it.

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9781911344476

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Reviews

'You don't so much read this novel as take it in intravenously. It goes straight to the blood - brief, brutal and beautiful.' -- Samantha Harvey, author of Dear Thief 'An examination of the ageing male heart - a dissection as subtle and tender as it is, ultimately, unnerving ... A wonderfully disconcerting piece of work which, on a second and even a third reading, only seems to grow more expansive and multifaceted while managing at the same time to remain mysterious and tightly furled ... If one of the purposes of fiction is to show us ourselves, Wieringa's mirror is polished to perfection.' -- Julie Myerson The Observer 'While the narrative focuses on the collapse of one man's world, it still raises huge moral questions ... Haunting.' The Sunday Times 'A painful, razor-sharp portrait of what it is to be an ageing man ... Beautiful, concise, taut.' -- Mariella Frostrup BBC Radio 4 'Open Book' 'Brilliant ... Merciless in the gentle accuracy with which it asks, very simply and persistently: What did you think was going to happen? A Beautiful Young Wife is a book that could derail someone. There's real power in that.' -- Cynan Jones, author of The Dig 'Fiction at its most precise and potent.' -- Julie Myerson The Observer 'Perfectly dosed prose (translated with elegance by Sam Garrett) and unfaltering narrative control ... Wieringa's lithe 128 pages fill half an afternoon, but days later the figure of our Job-like hero, weeping at his lecture podium, is an unforgettable warning that both romantic as well as scientific endeavours require empathy and imagination.' The Spectator 'With this luminous study of a life in slow crisis, Wieringa seems on fertile new ground. He forgoes the motions of cause and effect to give something as profound and puzzling as life itself.' -- Sheena Joughin TLS 'Brutally precise' -- Cathy Rentzenbrink Stylist 'Wieringa is a writer with range and skill ... Mesmerising.' Sunday Herald 'Elegantly written and thoughtful.' Emerald Street 'Brilliantly written ... the last few pages are mesmerising.' The Saturday Age 'Wieringa takes us on a journey deep into the psyche of an ageing male in this potent work ... No words are wasted in this thought-provoking love story.' Herald-Sun 'With his lyrical, sobre dialogue, restrained ambience, formed with well-chosen, evocative words, the author doses drama but the cruelty always pops up with an unexpected blow.' Corriere della Sera 'A magician at work.' de Morgen 'Wieringa's masterful depiction of a faltering marriage.' de Volkskrant

'Wieringa's masterful depiction of a faltering marriage.' * de Volkskrant * 'A magician at work.' * de Morgen * 'With his lyrical, sobre dialogue, restrained ambience, formed with well-chosen, evocative words, the author doses drama but the cruelty always pops up with an unexpected blow.' * Corriere della Sera * `Wieringa takes us on a journey deep into the psyche of an ageing male in this potent work ... No words are wasted in this thought-provoking love story.' * Herald-Sun * `Brilliantly written ... the last few pages are mesmerising.' * The Saturday Age * `Elegantly written and thoughtful.' * Emerald Street * `Wieringa is a writer with range and skill ... Mesmerising.' * Sunday Herald * `Brutally precise' -- Cathy Rentzenbrink * Stylist * `With this luminous study of a life in slow crisis, Wieringa seems on fertile new ground. He forgoes the motions of cause and effect to give something as profound and puzzling as life itself.' -- Sheena Joughin * TLS * `Perfectly dosed prose (translated with elegance by Sam Garrett) and unfaltering narrative control ... Wieringa's lithe 128 pages fill half an afternoon, but days later the figure of our Job-like hero, weeping at his lecture podium, is an unforgettable warning that both romantic as well as scientific endeavours require empathy and imagination.' * The Spectator * `Fiction at its most precise and potent.' -- Julie Myerson * The Observer * `Brilliant ... Merciless in the gentle accuracy with which it asks, very simply and persistently: What did you think was going to happen? A Beautiful Young Wife is a book that could derail someone. There's real power in that.' -- Cynan Jones, author of The Dig `A painful, razor-sharp portrait of what it is to be an ageing man ... Beautiful, concise, taut.' -- Mariella Frostrup * BBC Radio 4 'Open Book' * `While the narrative focuses on the collapse of one man's world, it still raises huge moral questions ... Haunting.' * The Sunday Times * `An examination of the ageing male heart - a dissection as subtle and tender as it is, ultimately, unnerving ... A wonderfully disconcerting piece of work which, on a second and even a third reading, only seems to grow more expansive and multifaceted while managing at the same time to remain mysterious and tightly furled ... If one of the purposes of fiction is to show us ourselves, Wieringa's mirror is polished to perfection.' -- Julie Myerson * The Observer * `You don't so much read this novel as take it in intravenously. It goes straight to the blood - brief, brutal and beautiful.' -- Samantha Harvey, author of <i>Dear Thief</i>

Author Information

Tommy Wieringa was born in 1967 and grew up partly in the Netherlands, and partly in the tropics. He began his writing career with travel stories and journalism, and is the author of several internationally bestselling novels. His fiction has been longlisted for the Booker International Prize, shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Oxford/Weidenfeld Prize, and has won Holland’s Libris Literature Prize. Sam Garrett has translated some fifty novels and works of nonfiction. He has won prizes and appeared on shortlists for some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, and is the only translator to have twice won the British Society of Authors’ Vondel Prize for Dutch–English translation.

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