A family sailing excursion goes badly awry in a perfect storm of weather, naiveté, and marital tension. Michael Partlow feels trapped in a dull job and wants an adventure; his wife, Juliet, is a stay-at-home mother of two who's prone to depression. (Her malaise is exacerbated by her having to abandon her dissertation on the poet Anne Sexton, another depressive mom.) In an impulsive moment, Michael decides to purchase a small yacht (which he renames Juliet) and brings the family down to Panama to sail it to Cartagena, Colombia. We know early that something went wrong on the trip: Juliet notes that their house is "a point of interest," Michael is absent, and she's taken to retreating to a closet. As Gaige parcels out details of the calamity, she frames Michael and Juliet's story as he said, -she said dueling narratives: Juliet's present-day narration of the trip's aftermath alternates with entries from Michael's logbook. The parrying reveals how sometimes even the closest couples fail to understand each other: Michael is prone to mocking Juliet's sensitivity ("Tears, a husband's kryptonite") while Juliet only had the slightest sense of his internal seething, which intertwines grumpy political grievances with escalating contempt for his marriage. Gaige is well-suited for this sort of psychological exploration: Her previous novel, Schroder (2013), smartly chronicled the irrationality that can consume a marital split. And the seafaring sections are gripping, as the family's lives are literally tempest-tossed. Yet the novel is also a ship carrying a lot of ballast, as Gaige sometimes strains to keep the couple's parrying going: spats, riffs on parenting, literary analysis, and a late-breaking murder mystery that feels tacked-on. None of which sinks the story, but it does dampen its power. A powerful if sometimes wayward take on a marriage on the rocks. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Their marriage teetering on the edge, Michael and Juliet buy a sailboat (which Michael renames Juliet) and embark on an open-ended adventure sailing around the Caribbean with their two small children, Sybil and George. Michael sees sailing as a way to reclaim independence and freedom and to connect on a spiritual level with his long-dead father. He also hopes the change will shake Juliet out of her depression, rooted in a childhood trauma and exacerbated by her abandonment of her poetry dissertation owing to the stress of child rearing. Instead, a series of setbacks and near-catastrophes exacerbate the friction. It's revealed fairly early on that a tragedy occurred, and the narration alternates (sometimes by the paragraph or sentence) between Juliet's reflections and Michael's captain's logbook (which becomes something of a journal), as well as occasional interludes consisting of Sybil's sessions with her therapist. Verdict This book's unusual structure is effective once you figure out what Gaige is up to. There are multiple layers to explore for contemporary literary scholars or a committed book club, as Gaige (Schroder) has much to say about the struggles and complexities of marriage, particularly in our current political and cultural climate. [See Prepub Alert, 11/4/19.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Juliet resisted her husband Michael's idea that they could leave their life in Connecticut to set out on a sea voyage with their two children. Just about everyone he told about it had some sort of criticism. Their marriage was rocky as it was, and, with a seven-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son, people found plenty of reasons why it was a bad idea. But, eventually, Juliet relents; Michael finds a boat; and they set off in pursuit of his dream. Told from Juliet's perspective after the voyage, shattered and spending most days in a closet while her mother handles the children and household, and interwoven with Michael's often-rhapsodic, at times confessional captain's log entries, Sea Wife gives a multilayered perspective on the ill-fated voyage. From the challenges of two people finding themselves on opposite ends of the political spectrum to Juliet's depression, which leads her to give up on her dissertation, and the challenges of life at sea, this surprising novel is stunning and deep.--Bridget Thoreson Copyright 2020 Booklist

A marriage implodes and a husband dies due to the strain of a year sailing around the Caribbean, in Gaige's splendid, wrenching novel (after Schroder). Michael Partlow, an unfulfilled businessman lured by visions of heroic self-sufficiency and idealized memories of his late father, proposes that he and his wife, Juliet--a stalled-out poetry PhD candidate and stay-at home mother--buy a boat, leave Connecticut, and spend a year sailing with their two young children. Despite Juliet's misgivings and worries, she agrees and the family enters a new wandering lifestyle with moments of joy amid frightening storms, privations, and mounting financial costs. Eventually, the cramped life onboard drives Juliet and Michael into arguments fueled by Juliet's depression and Michael's support of President Trump, and Michael ends up dead from dengue fever. Five months after the end of the voyage, Juliet is mired in a deep depression and gains insight into her marriage by reading Michael's journal, and the story takes a frantic turn when police arrive with questions about a missing person Michael owed money to. Gaige balances the piecemeal explanations of Michael's involvement with a profound depiction of the weight of depression and the pains of a complicated relationship. Every element of this impressive novel clicks into a dazzling, heartbreaking whole. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (May)