Man and Wife continues the story of Harry Silver, a story that began in Man and Boy. I found Man and Boy difficult to read as there were so many uncomfortable parallels with my own life. In this sequel there were far fewer parallels, and so I felt less of an emotional impact from the story.
The story is Harry's journey as he attempts to come to terms with a new life. A second marriage, and a son he sees once a week. It isn't what he imagined life would be like and much of the book is spent with Harry being tempted by trying to search for he imagines would be the perfect family life.
A key scene for me was where Harry is telling his mother that he wants a normal family life like she and his father did. Hiw mother's response is to point out that they felt far from normal and struggled with it for many years. The clear implication here is that many of us are, like Harry, after an idealised version of life without the struggle needed to achieve it.
While this was a good sequel it does suffer the problem that almost all sequels suffer from, it's not quite as good as the first book.
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