His Wife Leaves Him

His Wife Leaves Him is a fictional novel as achingly simple as its title: A man, Martin, thinks about the loss of his wife, Gwen. Dixon, like all great writers, captures consciousness. Stories matter here, and the writer understands how people tell them and why they go on retelling them, for stories, finally, may be all that Martin has of Gwen. His Wife Leaves Him is Dixon's most important and ambitious novel, his tenderest and funniest writing to date, and the stylistic and thematic summation of his writing life.