Hello Wife has a lot in common with Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver as both deal with the problem of drug addiction in contemporary America, though I preferred the Kingsolver version. Charlotte Lansing, the protagonist of Hello Wife, is a fifty-something woman who had a good start in life with a loving family, a physician father who paid for an affluent lifestyle and a nice home. Nonetheless Charlotte feels empty and looks for something to fill the void she perceives in her life. As she sinks progressively lower, she lives in dumps, works at dead end jobs, chooses flaky boyfriends, and ultimately falls in love with a jobless morphine addict. He drags her into his life style and gets her hooked on drugs despite the efforts of her family to rescue her. Hello Wife is remarkable in its depiction of her family that does their best to love and help her, though they are unable to keep her from her worst self. What starts as a novel with a bit of hope, that wisp disappears as Charlotte unravels before the reader’s eyes. Though I was sucked into her story, it was hard to resist a virtual smack across her face to wake her up.
In contrast, Demon Copperfield’s protagonist, Damon, was born with nothing. After the death of his mother, he becomes an orphan and is placed into the foster system where he slides further to the bottom. Despite his poor beginnings, Damon has the wherewithal to pull himself out of the drug addiction that plagues Appalachia. I found his story of redemption much more appealing.
*********************
Hello Wife (Santa Fe Writer’s Project, September 30, 2025) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
*********************
You can read my review of Demon Copperfield here.
*********************
This post contains affiliate links to third party sites. These can help you visually identify books I recommend. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small compensation at no additional cost to you. This offsets some of the cost of maintaining this blog.
