Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Fiction Humorous

Autopsy of a Boring Wife

by (author) Marie-Renee Lavoie

translated by Arielle Aaronson

Publisher
House of Anansi Press Inc
Initial publish date
Mar 2019
Category
Humorous, Literary, Family Life
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487004613
    Publish Date
    Mar 2019
    List Price
    $22.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487004620
    Publish Date
    Mar 2019
    List Price
    $18.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Like a Québécois Bridget Jones’s Diary, Autopsy of a Boring Wife tells the hysterically funny and ultimately touching tale of forty-eight-year-old Diane, a woman whose husband is having an affair because, he says, she bores him.

Diane takes the change to heart and undertakes an often ribald, highly entertaining journey to restore trust in herself--and others--that offers an astute commentary on women and girls, gender differences, and the curious institution of twenty-first century marriage. All the details are up for scrutiny in this brisk, yet tender story of a path to recovery. Autopsy of a Boring Wife is a wonderfully fresh novel of the pitfalls of an apparently “boring” life that could be any of ours.

About the authors

MARIE-RENÉE LAVOIE was born in 1974 in Limoilou, near Quebec City. She is the author of four novels, including Mister Roger and Me, which won ICI Radio-Canada’s “Battle of the Books” — the Quebec equivalent of “Canada Reads” — and the Archambault Prize, and Autopsy of a Boring Wife, which was a finalist for the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award and longlisted for CBC Canada Reads. It was also a Hoopla Book Club selection and a CBC Best Book of the Year, and is currently being developed for television. She lives in Montreal, where she teaches literature at Maisonneuve College.

 

Marie-Renee Lavoie's profile page

ARIELLE AARONSON left her native New Jersey in 2007 to pursue a diploma in Translation Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. She holds an M.A. in Second Language Education from McGill University and has spent the past few years teaching English in the Montreal public school system and creating educational material for second language learners. She previously translated Marie-Renée Lavoie’s Autopsy of a Boring Wife and A Boring Wife Settles the Score for Arachnide.

 

Arielle Aaronson's profile page

Awards

  • Runner-up, Forest of Reading Evergreen Award
  • Commended, A CBC Book of the Year

Editorial Reviews

The characters are vivid and entertaining . . . The scenes and dialogue can be laugh-out-loud funny, and the narrative hums along smoothly, facilitated by the fine translation from French by Arielle Aaronson.

Montreal Review of Books

Lavoie’s fiercely hilarious take on the pains and triumphs of marital abandonment feels perfectly right.

Toronto Star

With great humour and tenderness, Marie-Renée Lavoie recounts Diane’s journey to regain trust in both herself and the people around her . . . A piercing commentary on gender, marriage, and the nuances of self-love.

Toronto Life

Lavoie keeps her novel short, offering chaotic humour and snappy observation to balance the pain and loss . . . A readable, recognizable, tragicomic account of coping with domestic disaster.

Kirkus Reviews

A provocative, funny, and candid story.

Winnipeg Free Press

Other titles by

Other titles by

Related lists