Wayward

A Novel

By: Dana Spiotta

Narrated by: Susan Bennett

Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

A “furious and addictive new novel” (The New York Times) about mothers and daughters, and one woman's midlife reckoning as she flees her suburban life.

“A virtuosic, singular and very funny portrait of a woman seeking sanity and purpose in a world gone mad.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“Riddled with insights into aging, womanhood, and discontent, Wayward is as elegant as it is raw, and almost as funny as it is sad.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

“A comic, vital new novel.” (The New Yorker)

Samantha Raymond's life has begun to come apart: her mother is ill, her teenage daughter is increasingly remote, and at fifty-two she finds herself staring into "the Mids"—that hour of supreme wakefulness between three and four in the morning in which women of a certain age suddenly find themselves contemplating motherhood, mortality, and, in this case, the state of our unraveling nation.

When she falls in love with a beautiful, decrepit house in a hardscrabble neighborhood in Syracuse, she buys it on a whim and flees her suburban life—and her family—as she grapples with how to be a wife, a mother, and a daughter, in a country that is coming apart at the seams.

Dana Spiotta's Wayward is a stunning novel about aging, about the female body, and about female complexity in contemporary America. Probing and provocative, brainy and sensual, it is a testament to our weird times, to reforms and resistance and utopian wishes, and to the beauty of ruins.

©2021 Dana Spiotta (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times Critics' Top Book of the Year

One of the Best Books of the Year: New York Times, Washington Post, Vogue, The Guardian, and more

A Best Book of the Summer: USA Today, Town & Country, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Buzzfeed, Real Simple, The Millions, and more

“Furious and addictive.... Sam [is] an ideal guide, rash, funny, searching, entirely unpredictable, appalled at her own entitlement and ineffectuality—drawn with a kind of skeptical fondness.... So much contemporary fiction swims about in its own theories; what a pleasure to encounter not just ideas about the thing, but the thing itself—descriptions that irradiate the pleasure centers of the brain, a protagonist so densely, exuberantly imagined, she feels like a visitation.” (Parul Sehgal, The New York Times)

“Dana Spiotta is one of the most alert, ambitious, nuanced, and, yes, smartest of our contemporary novelists.... Spiotta’s novels, always rich with ideas and atmosphere, often focus on the arts.... Here, architecture connects to Wayward’s larger meditations about impermanence and decay—human, structural and even national.” (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air)

“Thrilling...Spiotta’s novels are unfailingly dense with life—the textures, digressions, and details thereof—and Wayward is no exception. The novel is at once satirical and earnest: Sam asks what she can do to atone for her thoughtless privilege, what role she might play as an agent of change. There’s much comedy in the asking, but the novel makes clear that the answers aren’t straightforward. Spiotta offers grand themes and beautiful peripheral incidents...she writes with sly humor and utter seriousness; a rare articulation of midlife now. For this reader, there is uncommon pleasure in the paradoxes of this climacteric tale.” (Claire Messud, Harper’s Magazine)

Interesting

If you are from Syracuse, you will love the many references to the city. I do wish the narrator had pronounced Nedrow and Colvin correctly. The mispronounced words were like chalk on a chalkboard to me. I did find the protagonist a bit grating. I felt like she was a bit spoiled and wanted to tell her to get a life. The book did keep my interest, however

Even better than I expected

I heard the author interviewed on NPR, and I was curious. I thought the book would be at least solid, and maybe even good.

But it was more. It really drew me in, very subtly. I was freaked out at first about the main character buying a house on impulse. What!?! Who DOES that? I didn’t quite trust the author to bring it all together. But she does!

One small moment of dissonance—the voices of two characters who are temperamentally very different sound almost identical in some places.

It is beautifully performed. The narrator’s voice is a perfect fit.

Yay team!
You produced something really beautiful.

Good if you like internal musings

The characters are super introspective and there are long musings about menopause and death. I’m in my 70’s and so these are probably appropriate for my age, but I found it all unappealing and did not relate well to the characters. That’s the reason for my mediocre review. I have a desperate need now to read some romance, mystery or other escapist lit.

Unusual, personal and powerful

A story that changes direction several times, about a mother entering menopause and her adolescent daughter coming into her sexuality. Draws you in gradually and beautifully. Narration most very good. Sometimes not perfect on the male voices but it is 90% female. Sweet, sharp and poignant.
I first heard about this book through NYTimes book review podcast.

From Syracuse - still fun

I’m from Syracuse and was curious how the City would come across in fiction. Happily the author wove the City into the story as such a great character that the magic of the book as fiction was not lost! Wonderful story telling, beautiful depiction of the good and bad of our city.

Not my cup of tea

This book is well written, but overall I didn’t care for it. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I will just say there is an event in the book that seems to come out of nowhere then disappear without conclusion or any attachment to the rest of the story that I could find. I also felt a disconnect from the characters’ emotions. I had trouble figuring out what, if anything, they were feeling a lot of the time. It’s

an internal dialogue. a threadbare plot.

This book is mostly an internal dialogue, the voice of a middle aged woman, trying to find out what is ahead of her after her daughter is grown, her marriage is middle aged, and in which world she lives (a post 2017 world). a threadbare plot. The themes are dead-on, though.

Good but a little pretentious at times

I really liked the narrator and the book. But there were times that the author went down some weird pretentious rabbit holes. All in all though I enjoyed the book.

Promising start but...

Promising start but this book seems unsure of what it wants to be or wants to say...commentary on recent politics, or crime, or social media...so it does all three and more, at the expense of character development. It also includes a historical set piece that appears at an odd time and too far from the original reference. Just seems like a conceit.The book needed a good editor but it is smart, well written and there were parts that will stay with me. I liked the biting, cynical tone of the main protagonist, Sam, but it might not be for everyone. It confronts menopause head on, and unapologetically, and that is refreshing. With all its flaws, it was nicely narrated and I enjoyed it enough to keep going to the end. If you're on the fence, get it.

characters likeability questioned throughout

I started to lose interest two-thirds in but slowly moved back to being interested in their stories/ lives.