William’s Wife
A co-publication with Boiler House Press.
Cover illustration Anna Steinberg
“William’s Wife is a study in pathological control. As Jane goes about her life – restricted, repetitive, deadly – we cannot look away. What begin as Jane’s acts of resistance to William’s control – keeping tiny amounts of money for herself – ends as the cause of a debased, paranoid and lonely life. The horror isn’t that which punctures and invades ordinary life; it is ordinary life, lived to its logical conclusion.” – Leigh Wilson
When Jane marries the elderly grocer William Chirp, she thinks she has moved up into the comfort of middle class. Instead, she discovers that William exerts a control over her life that forces her to live like a prisoner. His tight-fistedness and suspicions so affect Jane that even after his death, she finds herself trapped in a penny-pinching paranoia and resorts to scavenging for food out of garbage bins and taking her silverware with her everywhere in a shopping bag.