Title:: [[Ex-Wife]] Authors:: [[Ursula Parrott]] Tags:: #fiction Read:: [[2026-03-08]] Instagram :: https://www.instagram.com/p/DVoPH3zjsrO/ ## Editions - Edition:: [[McNally Editions]], 2023 - Original Copyright:: 1929 - Pages:: 239 ## Purchase * Bookshop.org:: https://bookshop.org/a/94437/9781946022561 ## Annotations Always enjoy reading something that was provocative when published, yet with the passing of time feels not just contemporary but timeless. Such as Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott. Published anonymously in 1929, it’s a novel that begins with the end of a short marriage between a couple in their early 20s experimenting with an open marriage. Patricia, the titular ex-wife, then lives it up in Prohibition-era NYC, balancing freedom with a perception of moral baggage that was quickly losing its power. What was provocative then is almost cliche today: Patricia is both a precursor and a plot point for Candace Bushnell and the Sex and the City empire, among others. I had similar thoughts about Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (published 29 years earlier), but it’s worth noting how Dreiser being a he afforded him protections against suggestion that Parrott didn’t have. Finally: what kind of edgy novel released today could feel similarly contemporary in a hundred years?