The Uncoupling: A Novel

Meg Wolitzer

Apr 2011 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings and The Female Persuasion, a funny, provocative, revealing novel about female desire.

When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses for the school play Lysistrata-the comedy by Aristophanes in which women stop having sex with men in order to end a war-a strange spell seems to be cast over the school. Or, at least, over the women. One by one throughout the high school community, perfectly healthy, normal women and teenage girls turn away from their husbands and boyfriends in the bedroom, for reasons they don't really understand. As the women worry over their loss of passion, and the men become by turns unhappy, offended, and above all, confused, both sides are forced to look at their shared history, and at their sexual selves in a new light.

As she did to such acclaim with the New York Times bestseller The Ten-Year Nap, Wolitzer tackles an issue that has deep ramifications for women's lives, in a way that makes it funny, riveting, and totally fresh-allowing us to see our own lives through her insightful lens.

Read an essay about writing The Uncoupling from the author, Meg Wolitzer.

Ratings and reviews

It almost happened when we weren't watching, but Meg Wolitzer has shot to the tip-top of American novelists male or female. She just gets better and better as time goes on. I saw the huge rave review in People magazine this week and pretty stopped what i was doing and lined up to get this one. Basically i inhaled Wolitzer's book last night. The Uncoupling - which imagines what it would be like if all the women in a small town (they are of all ages) stopped having sex with their husbands, boyfriends, etc. - is funny, serious, acute, profound, incredibly sexy (even though no one is having sex, and maybe i shouldn't admit I found no one having sex so sexy) and most of all, basically impossible to put down. What i don't altogether GET is how Wolitzer manages to be among the most beautiful, poetical writers out there as well as a fantastically witty, charming, socially dead-on, page-turning storyteller who is in complete, total command of what she is doing. She's light and reader-friendly but you leave feeling as though you've just eaten the most filling meal, too. Don't think I've felt this way since I finished David Nicholl's "One Day" - and that's PRAISE. So: highly highly recommended. Men: read and learn, you will love this book. Women: read it and adore it and don't do what Wolitzer's women do! Me: now I have to get back to my life (ugh).

About the author

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Interestings, The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, The Wife, and Sleepwalking. She is also the author of the young adult novel, Belzhar. Wolitzer lives in New York City.