Poet's Wife

<p><strong>The Poet's Wife - 'Affecting and beautifully written' - <em>The Times</em></strong></p><p><strong>A fascinating compelling book about the wife of John Clare and the bewildering effects of her husband's madness.</strong> <strong>Clare Morrall Booker shortlisted author.</strong></p><p></p>It is 1841. Patty is married to John Clare: peasant poet genius and madman.</p>Travelling home one day Patty finds her husband sitting footsore at the side</p>of the road having absconded from a lunatic asylum over eighty miles away.</p>She is devastated to discover that he has not returned home to find her but to</p>search for his childhood sweetheart Mary Joyce to whom he believes he is married.</p>What must it be like to be married to a man and have had nine children with him only</p>to be thrown into a strange love triangle where he believes he has two wives?</p></p>Patty loves John deeply but he seems lost to her. Plagued by jealousy she</p>seek strength in memories: their whirlwind courtship the poems John wrote</p>for her their shared affinity for the land. But as John descends further into</p>madness hope seems to be fading. Will she ever be able to conquer her own</p>anger and hurt and reconcile with this man she now barely knows?</p><p></p><p>'Patty's voice is at once homely and poetic and her lyrical descriptions of the rhythms and customs of mid-nineteenth century England - where it is unlucky to look at the moon through glass and where a bundle of corn is left in the field at the end of every harvest like an offering to the gods - are at the heart of the novel. Through these evocations of her country girlhood questions arise about her relationship with John. Is it just Clare's illness that has triggered his obsession with Mary? Has he only loved Patty with part of his heart? <strong>The Times Literary Supplement</strong></p><p>'This novel will leave you reaching for the nearest copy of John Clare's powerful poems.' <strong>The Daily Mail</strong></p>