Wifehouse

A captivating, beautifully written novel about a mother who chooses to leave her family, for readers of Miranda July

Annie and Hector have been hosting family friends in the guest house of their Connecticut home for many months. As a thank you, Annie is gifted French lessons with a twenty-six-year-old local French tutor, Thierry. Hector, an actor, goes to Argentina to film on location, leaving Annie to single-parent their two kids. As life and the lessons progress, she finds herself unexpectedly vulnerable to the charms of a man closer in age to her teenage daughter than to her own. A new life for Annie emerges, one she could never have foreseen.

Bookended by two Christmas lunches and told over the course of one year through the shifting perspectives of wife, husband, lover, best friend and children, Walger paints a contradictory, nuanced portrait of a woman who walks away from every role that tradition and society have expected of her.

Format: Paperback
Imprint: Manilla
Published: April 2026
ISBN: 9781786586421