This is the story of the marriage behind some of the most famous
literary works of the 20th century --and a probing consideration of what
it means to be a wife and a writer in the modern world
At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak
overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were
crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She
needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue.
"I've always loved Orwell," Funder writes, "his self-deprecating humour,
his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on." So after
rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major
biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his
forgotten wife, and it was a revelation.
Eileen O'Shaughnessy married Orwell in 1936. O'Shaughnessy was a writer
herself, and her literary brilliance not only shaped Orwell's work, but
her practical common sense saved his life. But why and how, Funder
wondered, was she written out of their story? Using newly discovered
letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder re-creates the Orwells'
marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in
London. As she peeks behind the curtain of Orwell's private life she is
led to question what it takes to be a writer--and what it is to be a
wife.
A breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary
marriages of the twentieth century, Wifedom speaks to our present
moment as much as it illuminates the past. Genre-bending and utterly
original, it is an ode to the unsung work of women everywhere.
