Instead, Marcie Maxfield pulls back the curtain on the globe-trotting world of an expat wife to explore issues of marriage and compromise. Em's booming voice is the engine that drives this narrative—raw, comic and authentic. True to life, this is a disorderly journey, one that ultimately arrives at a new understanding of self-love and the complexity of relationships. Blurs the line between genres—combining the narrative voice of literary fiction with the raw authenticity of memoir.
"Equally funny and brutal, this novel breathes vivid life into a much maligned and little understood "type" - the expat wife. Maxfield poured her heart into the writing, and it shows: the pages crackle."
—Junot Diaz, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Drown and This Is How You Lose Her
“Reads like your best friend’s blisteringly funny diary, especially if your best friend happens to be a stand-up comic with a knife’s edge wit . . . Find a chair, open the first page of this sizzling story, and fly around the world on that trip you’ve been itching to take all year.”
—Susan Conley, Author of Landslide and The Foremost Fortune Cookie
"With a brilliant cast of colorful characters and specific details of each country lived in, this book is sure to draw in readers who are looking to experience a true traveling adventure with real-life celebrations and letdowns."
—Seattle Book Review
"Em is a complex individual, with layers to her personality that make her utterly riveting to read."
— Readers' Favorite, 5 star review
"Em is the feminist response to Dangerfield's “I don’t get no respect”. A character you want to meet in a lost bar in a lost town and spend the evening laughing with. Ironic, poignant and downright funny. It is a great novel to take on the road."
—Andrew Fierberg, producer of Secretary, My Art and Hamlet 2000
"A stunner of a novel...This book is one of the best arguments for showing how a woman can be a multi-hyphenate: a daughter, a mother, a friend, a wife, a lover, a writer, a traveler, a thinker, a badass, a wallflower, a hypochondriac, a success, a failure."
—Mel Rosenthal, The Book Slut
“Maxfield calls Em’s problems those of “tagalong wife privilege,” but the novel isn’t just about that; there’s something here that’s more universal, which women in different circumstances are sure to find familiar: the notion of abandoning the care of one’s own health and happiness in the name of love of family and marriage.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Any woman who has ever sacrificed something of herself for her family will empathize with the good fortune that comes with a hidden cost.”
—Jo Furniss, author of The Trailing Spouse, The Last To Know, and Amazon Charts bestseller All the Little Children
“Maxfield is like a great comic actor, improvising, free-associating, seducing us to ride along on the riff that is Em’s Awful Good Fortune.”
—Rick Lenz, award-winning author of North of Hollywood and Hello, Rest of My Life
“Ferocious and hilarious, with a writing voice so unique it will knock your socks off. ”
—Corine Gantz, author of Hidden in Paris and the trilogy The Curator of Broken Things.
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