He expected Neal to accept that he had a mistress, declaring, “I see no reason in the world why a man of fifty-nine should not love his wife and also be allowed to feel strongly about another woman.” Even the writer Morante, who had tried to escape being “a wife,” refusing to be called Mrs. Neal, an actress, had won a Tony, a Golden Globe and an Oscar, but Dahl despised her “ambition.” When she had a stroke, he was such a cruel taskmaster that one friend thought he sounded like he was training a dog. Amis regarded Howard, one of the most respected writers of her generation, as a housekeeper. Dundy’s best-selling novel drove her husband mad with jealousy. These women, so long overshadowed, are at last center stage - a miracle when we consider how desperately their partners tried to silence them. In her introduction, she writes that this book is a “project of reclamation and reparation,” and indeed it is. The stories Ciuraru tells are gripping, horrific and sometimes even funny, but most of all they are important.
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