Hello everyone, I'm Gilbert Cruz and this is the Book Review Podcast.

This week I'm delighted to be joined by Sadie Stein, who in addition to being a fantastic

writer for the section is primarily one of our preview editors, which means she reads

a lot of books and then she thinks about the best people to review those books for us.

She's here today to talk about Lives of the Wives, Five Literary Marriages by Carmela

Choraru.

Sadie got the wonderful Hermione Hobie to write about that book for us.

Sadie, thanks for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Sadie, Lives of the Wives is quite a dishy book.

I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about it.

Basically, it's just what it sounds like.

It is five literary marriages.

She starts with Lady Una Trabridge and Radcliffe Hall, whom you may know as the author of the

incredibly scandalous lesbian classic, The Well of Loneliness.

There is the Italian couple, Alcy Morante and Alberto Moravia.

There is Raul Dal and Patricia Neal, whom you may have heard of.

There's Kingsley Amos and Elizabeth Jane Howard.

And lastly, we have the critic Kenneth Tynon and novelist Elaine Dundee.

So this book is about those five marriages, but it's also about, and you can tell me

if I'm overstating this, it's about how all of these guys, in the case of one of the

couple's, a woman, are terrible to their wives and sort of stifled their wives' creative

...