Saturday, June 19, 2021

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey















Title: The Echo Wife
Author: Sarah Gailey
Published: 2021
Call #: FIC Gailey


What if you could make a copy of the person you thought you loved, and just tweak it here and there to remove their ‘flaws’ and enhance their ‘better’ qualities? When you’re married to the foremost expert on human cloning, this is more than an idle thought experiment.
What if you discovered that your spouse was cheating, and the other woman turned out to be you – only not you, in significant and telling ways?
Doctor Evelyn Caldwell is not an easy person to love, and her frustrated husband has a unique option for remedying that – or so he believes, when he performs an illicit experiment based on her award-winning work. When she discovers what he’s done, she doesn’t realize how much worse it can get – until Martine calls her one night, begging for help, and meets her at the door covered in blood.
Neither of them realizes how much worse it can get, until they start digging up the back yard.
Sarah Gailey has crafted a compelling mystery and psychological study that feels like realistic, near-future possibility even as the circumstances become increasingly bizarre. They skillfully ratchet up the tension as, discovery by discovery, Evelyn and Martine come to understand themselves, each other, the man they both tried to love, and the full scope of his transgressions. The characters are brilliantly realized, especially the hard, complicated Evelyn, and the two women’s journey from simple rivalry to reluctant, brittle, cautious cooperation and connection is emotionally and intellectually gripping.
The Echo Wife examines issues of parenthood as well as partnership, and does not serve up easy, palatable answers. Gailey gradually reveals Evelyn’s childhood and relationship with her parents, creating a fascinating context for the adult Evelyn. The solutions Evelyn and Martine, her distorted echo, devise for their problems may tidy up all the loose ends – for the time being, at least – but they do not resolve all the lingering questions.

Dori D.
Popular Materials Asst.