Description

‘Outstanding… An elegant masterpiece… Wry but also warm and generous’ Roxane Gay

‘Frank, funny, enthralling… Think of it as rehab for road-weary romantics, inviting us to redefine what constitutes a love story’ Observer

‘Warning: you will WhatsApp multiple quotes to your friends from your sun-lounger’ Independent

Ten days after calling off her wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, she realised she had almost signed up to live somebody else’s life.

In this intimate, frank and funny memoir in essays, CJ Hauser lets go of ‘how life was supposed to be’ and goes looking for more honest ways of living. She kisses internet strangers, officiates a wedding, visits a fertility clinic. She reads Rebecca in the house her new boyfriend shared with his ex-wife and rewinds Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story to learn how not to lose yourself in a relationship. She writes about friends and lovers, ghosts and robots, grief and heartbreak, blood family and chosen family, and asks what more expansive definitions of love might offer us all.

The Crane Wife is a book for anyone whose life doesn’t look the way they thought it would; for anyone trying, if sometimes failing, to find joy in the unexpected.

‘CJ Hauser understands that there are so many different ways to love and live, and her words make all of them exciting possibilities.’ Natasha Lunn, bestselling author of CONVERSATIONS ON LOVE

‘Universal and exciting… The Crane Wife will satisfy and inspire anyone who has ever asked, ‘How did I get here, and what happens now?’ New York Times

‘Funny, exciting, vulnerable – truly visionary’ Alexander Chee

‘Intimate, witty and beautifully crafted’ Elle

‘Intimate, wry, compassionate… a book you want to press into friends’ hands’ Irish Mail on Sunday

Publisher Review

Outstanding... An elegant masterpiece... Wry but also warm and generous -- Roxane Gay I absolutely LOVED these essays. I knew I ought to ration myself to one a day in order to prolong the joy and fascination of them, but I just couldn't: I had to carry on reading and reading, like eating a whole packet of jelly babies in one sitting. What a fantastic, original, funny and touching voice! C J Hauser is a wondrous writer. This book will give so much happiness -- Cressida Connolly, author of AFTER THE PARTY Compassionate and funny and brave. The book is a masterclass in life writing, and a lesson in how to live a life outside the narratives that would contain us. CJ is a master story weaver. I was left wanting more, in the best way possible -- Charlie Gilmour, author of Featherhood Bold and brilliant and psychologically exquisite, CJ Hauser is a deeply gifted and generous writer. THE CRANE WIFE is enthralling. -- Charlotte Fox Weber, author of WHAT WE WANT In The Crane Wife, Hauser undertakes a new way for her to tell stories from her life, playing with history and personal history, exploring the possible hidden truths in her family's past and her own. The result is like interconnected short stories but about her life, the person she is and was, maybe even the person she never knew herself to be. Funny, exciting, vulnerable - truly visionary. -- Alexander Chee, author of QUEEN OF THE NIGHT and HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL The Crane Wife more than delivers on the immense promise of the viral essay that served as its source. My goodness is it funny, but also so devastatingly honest and bracing. Reading it is like taking a long road trip with your wisest, sharpest friend and talking the entire way. -- R. Eric Thomas, bestselling author of Here For It The Crane Wife is brilliant and beautiful - the vulnerability of her viral essay is expanded to include immense humour, pondering and further misadventures of the heart. An absolute must-read. I will be gifting this book all year long -- Frances Cha, internationally bestselling author of IF I HAD YOUR FACE In this perceptive and probing work, Hauser brilliantly parses the myths that shaped her understanding of love. . . Sparkling. . . A thrillingly original deconstruction of desire and its many configurations * Publishers Weekly, starred review * Hauser is a delightful and agile writer, capable of speaking in multiple registers, but what all of her essays have in common is honesty, wisdom, a certain loopiness-she's an old soul with a fresh perspective and an energetic, wandering mind. The result is an imaginative and beautiful memoir, one that'll be passed through the secret sisterhood of crane wives for years. -- Jennifer Senior Readers looking for something a little different in a memoir will not be disappointed. The strongest essays exemplify Hauser's keen awareness about life so far: things don't always work out as planned, love is complicated, and trusting your gut is, sometimes, the best option. * Library Journal * Perceptive and witty * Shelf Awareness * Intimate, witty and beautifully crafted * Elle * "I am a kind of breakup pro," Hauser writes late in this lively, thoughtful, and often funny set of personal essays-at a point when the reader has learned much about how unlucky in love she's been. . . Hauser makes a welcome effort to talk about both love and culture in unconventional ways. . . A smart, inviting, and candid clutch of self-assessments * Kirkus Reviews * A staccato, funny, barbed, metaphor-laced, and thought-provoking memoir-in-essays. . . No matter her focus, Hauser's deductions about human nature are always arresting, delving, fresh, and exhilarating * Booklist * While it's always difficult to summarize an essay collection, what holds The Crane Wife together is Hauser's unpacking of emotional truths: who do we love, and why, and what happens when they're gone? When we're alone? When we forget what it was like to love them? * LitHub *