Book Review: Ex-Wife, a novel by Ursula Parrott (1929)

Originally published in 1929, this is the cover for the 2023 paperback reprinting of Ex-Wife, by Ursula Parrott. 

After I read Marsha Gordon’s excellent 2023 biography Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott, I knew I had to read Parrott’s first novel, Ex-Wife. Published in 1929, Ex-Wife became a sensation, selling over 100,000 copies and launching Parrott’s career. Ex-Wife was republished in 2023 by McNally Editions. Unfortunately, it’s the only one of Parrott’s books that is currently in print. But the fact that Ex-Wife is finding a new audience is a positive one.  

Even though it’s now 95 years old, Ex-Wife is still a powerful book that asks deep questions about marriage and women’s roles in society. Parrott’s writing feels modern and vibrant, and she creates interesting characters to tell the story of Patricia and Peter, and the breakdown of their marriage.  

Ex-Wife was quite a shocking book in its day, and I’ll admit that I was shocked when just a few pages in Patricia and her roommate Lucia have a frank conversation about men. Lucia says, “We are awfully popular, and we know endless men, and we go everywhere.” Patricia responds, “They all want to sleep with us. So soon as they get here for dinner they begin arranging to stay for breakfast.” (p.8) That exchange felt very modern for a 1929 novel.  

Parrott’s nimble prose style keeps the reader swiftly turning the pages of Ex-Wife. There are harrowing moments, but the first-person narration doesn’t dwell on self-pity. Patricia is torn between the Victorian Age and modernity. The dilemmas she faces in Ex-Wife are those of women of every era: the balancing act of marriage, divorce, dating, love, family, children, career, friends. The result is a novel that still feels fresh and vibrant today.  

There’s a marvelous chapter in Ex-Wife that uses George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as a motif. The sheet music from excerpts of “Rhapsody” is reprinted in the text of the novel, creating a marvelous fusion between music and writing. Perfect for “the Jazz Age.” 

Speaking of “the Jazz Age,” there’s even a reference in Ex-Wife to F. Scott Fitzgerald, who famously coined the term “the Jazz Age.” Patricia tells Lucia “Myself, I’ve progressed, in taste, from Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway.” Lucia asks, “How much progress is that?” Patricia replies, “A damn long distance on the road to bigger and broader vocabularies.” (p.68-9) As a Fitzgerald fan, I’m a bit annoyed at this slight against Scott’s writing, but I can understand Patricia’s comment—certainly the subject matter of Fitzgerald and Hemingway was quite different.  

There are many marvelous lines in Ex-Wife, and one of my favorites was Lucia’s description of an older man who occasionally takes her out to dinner: “There’s a man who never got lost among the nuances, for he wouldn’t know a nuance if he saw it.” (p.96) Lucia has another great zinger: “Great Lovers...they remind me of the man who wanted to be a musician and so took one lesson on each instrument in the orchestra...he couldn’t play a tune on any of them in the end, Pat.” (p.134) 

I’d recommend Ex-Wife to anyone interested in a superb novel from the 1920’s that deserves a wider audience today.