Mad Wife: A Memoir

Kate Hamilton

Oct 2024 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Amy Landon

About this audiobook

Submitting to unwanted sex destroyed Kate’s love for her husband

But she considered killing herself before she could imagine leaving

In this electrifying literary memoir, Kate Hamilton deftly traces her complicated journey from loving wife to gaslit victim to furious feminist with an urgent goal: to expose how women are pressured to uphold the institutions of marriage and family, no matter the cost.

In the tradition of Know My Name and The Argonauts, Hamilton braids her own story with cultural criticism to argue that we must face the misogyny lurking in the shadows of marriage in the 21st century. She examines the beliefs and conditioning that held her in an increasingly destructive marriage and unflinchingly documents what she did to keep her family together—therapy, unwanted sex with her husband, swinging, affairs, an abortion—without always knowing what she freely chose. And she considers the damage that was done, to herself and others, until she could acknowledge that to save herself and her sons, she had to destroy her marriage.

Emotionally intense and timely, Mad Wife interrogates how marriage and the institutions that support it provide the perfect ecosystem for abuse of women and children, endangering their lives and denying them autonomy—all in the service of men’s desires.

About the author

Kate Hamilton is a Professor of English at a university where she teaches literature, literary theory, and women’s writing. She has published numerous books and dozens of academic articles and chapters on a wide array of authors, and she has given talks and keynote speeches about literature, pedagogy, and sexual violence at conferences and workshops throughout the U.S. and in Europe. Her first trade publication, Mad Wife uses these decades of work on literature and sexual violence to clarify her own dark past and illuminate clearer paths forward for other women.