The Dangerous Husband: A Novel

I discovered this obscure novel only because I liked one of the author’s pieces in Best American Short Stories in recent years. It’s a very curious book—simultaneously a very light read with extremely dark subject matter.

The narrator—a woman around 40 with a good wit—falls in love with Dennis, a charming and devoted yet lethally accident-prone man. After a whirlwind affair that leads to marriage, Dennis sweeps his wife off of her feet, only to drop her on the tile floor. He breaks his beloved’s arm with a hug and ruins an intimate encounter on a glass table by breaking it into shards of glass.

Dennis keeps an albino frog in a bucket in the basement and showers love on a hyperactive dog whose best trick is to pee on the rug. show more Although over the top, this is a dark and unsettling farce. If you like the idea of a black comedy about relationships with plenty of sex and the question of whether too much love can kill you (literally), you might like this book. For me it wasn’t fantastic, but Shapiro’s amusing voice kept me entertained. show less

Wow. This had different writing than I’m used to but it was really good. It leaves you making your own opinions on their relationship. I mean, you can tell that Dennis was mentally abusive but yet not......it’s just very interesting, all the thoughts and feelings the wife goes through.

A strange story about a woman who marries a dangerously clumsy man. He is rich enough to not have to work and owns a house in Greenwich Village with French doors nailed shut. It is not clear is he is just a klutz, or is deliberate in his awkwardness, although he I as likely to hurt himself as others. Their relationship is literally abusive, whether it is figuratively so is harder to determine. (Admittedly, I read this a few months ago and my recollection may not accurate.)

The reviews that I read of this book before I decided to read it were not very good, and now that I have finished I have to concur. I do like books a little off from the mainstream, but this story was just absurd, and a waste of time. It seems like “the dangerous husband�? tricked the protagonist by not being clumsy and hurting himself and others until they were married, and now she can’t leave. What to do?

super-klutzy Denis threatens life & limb of true love wife
6.00