Carmela Ciuraru is a well-known critic and editor, and the author of Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms, along with several poetry anthologies. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, and has written for publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe, among others. She lives in New York City.
This bracing survey delivers. - Publishers Weekly Eye-opening . . . . A rare window into five relationships providing a respectful yet unflinching look inside the daily, often complicated lives of the writers and their wives. . . .The reality is often harsh-but also fascinating. An illuminating, well-rendered literary biography. - Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) The five marriages that Carmela Ciuraru explores in Lives of the Wives provide such delightfully gossipy pleasure that we have to remind ourselves that these were real people whose often stormy relationships must surely have been less fun to experience than they are for us to read about. - Francine Prose, author of The Vixen