“Private Life” by Jane Smiley. The author
takes us through one women’s life from 1880 to World War II. Margaret Mayfield,
at age twenty-eight, was considered a spinster when she married a peculiar, and
much older, scientific genius.
Their
life together, although never happy, plunges into hatred as Margaret untangles
her husband’s delusional web of lies caused by his paranoia and manias. After thirty years of marriage Margaret sees her
husband for who he is, but more importantly she discovers her own flaws of
being passive and avoidant.