Understand the edges

You can't stay married to someone for ever just because they climb out of your attic one afternoon.

Or can you? How else do we make these decisions? The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio, was fun. So many husbands!

I probably would not have discovered or picked up this book were it not on the Tournament of Books longlist (it did not make the cut to final competition). The Husbands veers toward introspective rom-com.

She doesn't always like the new versions of herself, but they help her understand the edges of who she might be.

I love that our protagonist gets caught up in practicalities, googles her predicament when she can, and moves forward thoughtfully, when the science-fictiony multiverse premise could easily have taken an action thriller turn (à la Blake Crouch's Dark Matter), which genre I'm quite done with (whether on page or screen, I've lost all interest in extended chase and combat sequences, shoot-em-ups, and explosions).

[I don't have much to say about this novel (in fact, in general, I find I get hung up on writing about the wrong books here), but it did get me thinking more about editioning (inspired by how the husbands are swapped into her life, the subtle ripple effects of making those substitutions, as well as how any story's theme can be played out on range from quiet to bombastic). In terms of casting sculptures, I am working out whether I am producing the same sculpture in different ways. When do they become different sculptures? My sculptures are "separated at birth" as they emerge from the same mould. How do I talk about them, practically — a series, a sequence, versions, editions, variations?] 

Author interview.

Check out the Husband Generator:

An architect, though! What a perfect job for a husband. Ambitious yet concrete, artistic yet practical, glamorous yet without an industry-wide drug problem.