The Wife by Meg Wolitzer has a few good things going for it. Wolitzer’s craft is pristine, her characters deftly drawn and memorable. And Wolitzer has chosen an interesting time span to explore—beginning with woman as daughter, wife, mother and ending with woman as person. A process which was and continues to be a difficult emancipation. And the idea that those being emancipated would hesitate to take swift steps out of their restrictive roles is a fascinating concept.

The story is told from the point of view of Joan, wife of an award-winning novelist, whom, Joan tells us, she is going to leave. Joan tells us their life story, how they met and married, and how her husband moved from obscurity to celebrity in the literary world. We know about his first wife and child. We’re introduced to a woman writer who, fighting a losing battle with a man-centered world, publishes one book and is never heard from again. We hear about parties, drugs, sex, and the guilt Joan feels for being too absent from her children while they were growing up. We learn about her husband’s charm, his womanizing, his ego, his dependence, and his faulty ticker. But among all these things we know, there is one crucial bit of knowledge the reader is not privy to until the very end of the book. A thing so vital that it could never be withheld by the character, because it would be foremost in her mind throughout the entire story. It is something, therefore, withheld by the author. And all I can ask is, why?

The possibility of this thing occurred to me quite early in the book, but then I instantly pushed it away. Why would an author do it? What would holding back the most significant thing about a story until the very end accomplish? Well...let’s see if we can come up with an answer to that.

How about this: it makes the author’s job much easier. Cheating always is. If we’d been privy to this information from the beginning, the author’s job would have been much different. She would have had to deal with some serious issues…the why of it, the how of it. Examination would have been necessary. Discoveries would have been required. And all of it, the responsibility of the author.

But leaving the driving issue of the book for the final page relieves the author of all that work. Instead of a search for meaning, there is announcement. As though revelation is equal to understanding. A demanding reader will be offended. A more forgiving reader may take the onus upon herself, may attempt to fill the void the author has left, attempt to provide answers, reasons, explanations. But they will be her answers, reasons, and explanations, not the author’s. And, therefore, the book becomes open to all kinds of interpretation. The author might as well write a kit instead of a book, provide cut-out characters and scenery along with a general plot and hope for the best.

I think a reader deserves more. And unless a book is clearly marked romance, mystery, or thriller, I think the author should make some effort to provide it.