Wayward

A novel

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A “furious and addictive new novel” (The New York Times) about mothers and daughters, and one woman's midlife reckoning as she flees her suburban life.

“A virtuosic, singular and very funny portrait of a woman seeking sanity and purpose in a world gone mad.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Riddled with insights into aging, womanhood, and discontent, Wayward is as elegant as it is raw, and almost as funny as it is sad.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“A comic, vital new novel.” —The New Yorker

Samantha Raymond's life has begun to come apart: her mother is ill, her teenage daughter is increasingly remote, and at fifty-two she finds herself staring into "the Mids"—that hour of supreme wakefulness between three and four in the morning in which women of a certain age suddenly find themselves contemplating motherhood, mortality, and, in this case, the state of our unraveling nation.

When she falls in love with a beautiful, decrepit house in a hardscrabble neighborhood in Syracuse, she buys it on a whim and flees her suburban life—and her family—as she grapples with how to be a wife, a mother, and a daughter, in a country that is coming apart at the seams.

Dana Spiotta's Wayward is a stunning novel about aging, about the female body, and about female complexity in contemporary America. Probing and provocative, brainy and sensual, it is a testament to our weird times, to reforms and resistance and utopian wishes, and to the beauty of ruins.

Interesting

If you are from Syracuse, you will love the many references to the city. I do wish the narrator had pronounced Nedrow and Colvin correctly. The mispronounced words were like chalk on a chalkboard to me. I did find the protagonist a bit grating. I felt like she was a bit spoiled and wanted to tell her to get a life. The book did keep my interest, however

Even better than I expected

I heard the author interviewed on NPR, and I was curious. I thought the book would be at least solid, and maybe even good.

But it was more. It really drew me in, very subtly. I was freaked out at first about the main character buying a house on impulse. What!?! Who DOES that? I didn’t quite trust the author to bring it all together. But she does!

One small moment of dissonance—the voices of two characters who are temperamentally very different sound almost identical in some places.

It is beautifully performed. The narrator’s voice is a perfect fit.

Yay team!
You produced something really beautiful.

Good if you like internal musings

The characters are super introspective and there are long musings about menopause and death. I’m in my 70’s and so these are probably appropriate for my age, but I found it all unappealing and did not relate well to the characters. That’s the reason for my mediocre review. I have a desperate need now to read some romance, mystery or other escapist lit.

Unusual, personal and powerful

A story that changes direction several times, about a mother entering menopause and her adolescent daughter coming into her sexuality. Draws you in gradually and beautifully. Narration most very good. Sometimes not perfect on the male voices but it is 90% female. Sweet, sharp and poignant.
I first heard about this book through NYTimes book review podcast.

From Syracuse - still fun

I’m from Syracuse and was curious how the City would come across in fiction. Happily the author wove the City into the story as such a great character that the magic of the book as fiction was not lost! Wonderful story telling, beautiful depiction of the good and bad of our city.