Like Being A Wife

Shortlisted for the Age Fiction Prize.

“She finds more ways to be funny than I could count, yet she can cast a light into a dark corner before you know she's done it.”
Nick Earls

Daisy is married to her job, Shirley de Young is engaged to Jack but would as soon be married to herself, while Joannie has left her husband for a fling with the movie star, Ralph Fiennes. Brad is inspired by the Eureka uprising to break up with his girlfriend, and an unexpected influx of babies - two thousand of them - calls into question the meaning of Jenny's life.

Flitting from Sydney to Melbourne, Canberra to California, this loosely linked collection of stories shines a bright fluorescent light on family, friendships, work, love and loss.

Reading Group Book Questions

1. What is the meaning and role of wives in the stories?
2. Each story tackles the issue of commitment in some fashion or another, whether it be the decision to commit to a person, place or idea or to sever that commitment. What is the connection between ‘commitment’ and the title of the book? Is ‘the value of commitment’ a central theme of the book?
3. What do we really know about the characters? What information does the author provide about them and what does she withhold? How does this shape our reading and interpretation?
4. Do you like the characters? Do you recognise them? What is the importance of good and bad behaviour to their choices and happiness?
5. Some of the stories are quite realistic while others clearly have a fantastical component. What do the stories say about the importance of fantasy and reality in everyday life? Is there a distinction?

About The Author

Catherine Harris’s short stories and essays have been published in Australia, Canada, England and the USA. She won the Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize for short story in 2009. Her short story collection, Like Being A Wife, was shortlisted for the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for an unpublished manuscript and has gone on to be shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferiss prize and the Age Fiction prize.