- The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht was first published in March 2011
- Publisher: Random House
- 352 Pages
Bottom Line
Tea Obreht's much-anticipated debut novel, The Tiger's Wife, was released this year to advance praise from critics. At 25, she is the youngest writer to be named to The New Yorker's "Best 20 Under 40" list. Set in an unnamed Balkan country recovering from war and getting used to its new borders, The Tiger's Wife is the story of a young doctor's search for clues to the circumstances of her grandfather's death. With rich language and imagery, Obreht builds a mysterious and slowly suspenseful tale, weaving together her grandfather's stories of his childhood and youth to make sense of the present. While the narrative is beautifully written, imaginative and often compelling, it can also be dense and hard to follow at times.
Full Book Review
A young doctor, Natalia, is on her way to provide immunizations to orphans when she learns of her beloved grandfather's death in a remote village. Since he told no one where he was going and then died there, Natalia is compelled to find out the details.
The Tiger's Wife is mostly Natalia's retelling of the stories her grandfather told her of his childhood and youth. One is of a deathless man he first met while in a war; the second is of the events that occurred after an escaped tiger came to his snowed-in town when he was a boy. Natalia pairs these recollections with her own investigation in an attempt to understand her grandfather better, and to understand his death.
Alternating between suspenseful and dragging, interesting and confusing, The Tiger's Wife left me with mixed feelings. The language and imagery is vivid but can be too weighty at times, and the detailed stories of lore and tradition can actually be so detailed that they become overwhelming. I generally enjoyed the dozens of pages of back story Obreht devotes to what otherwise might seem like a minor character in a flashback, and yet present-day characters, most notably the narrator Natalia, are underdeveloped. I felt detached from her and the present-day plot, and more interested in the experiences of her grandfather, and I wonder if the book would have worked better overall if it somehow eliminated the the present day and the character of Natalia altogether.
On account of its density,
The Tiger's Wife isn't a novel you can read a few pages at a time. It's not plot or character-driven. It's to be read for the reader's journey through the narrative, the richness of Obreht's language, the way she spins the stories of small town legend and superstition. If you enjoy literary novels or tales of cultural folklore,
The Tiger's Wife is a good choice for you.
Reading The Tiger's Wife with your book club? Check out these book club discussion questions on The Tiger's Wife.
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