The Crane Wife cover art

The Crane Wife

A Memoir in Essays

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The Crane Wife

By: Christina Joyce Hauser
Narrated by: CJ Hauser
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Ten days after calling off her wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, she realised she had almost signed up to live somebody else's life.

In this intimate, frank and funny memoir in essays, CJ Hauser lets go of 'how life was supposed to be' and goes looking for more honest ways of living. She kisses internet strangers, officiates a wedding, visits a fertility clinic. She reads Rebecca in the house her new boyfriend shared with his ex-wife and rewinds Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story to ask if you can ever have a fresh start with an old love. She writes about friends and lovers, grief and heartbreak, blood family and chosen family, and asks what more expansive definitions of love might offer us all.

The Crane Wife is a book for anyone whose life doesn't look the way they thought it would; for anyone trying, if sometimes failing, to find joy in the unexpected.

©2022 Christina Joyce Hauser (P)2022 Penguin Audio Love, Dating & Attraction Relationships Marriage Memoir Funny Heartfelt

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Critic reviews

"I could relate to so much of this essay and accepting the bare minimum in relationships just to be loved." (Roxane Gay)

"Funny, exciting, vulnerable—truly visionary." (Alexander Chee)

"What a fantastic, original, funny and touching voice! C J Hauser is a wondrous writer. This book will give so much happiness." (Cressida Connolly, author of After the Party)
All stars
Most relevant
Ultimately I tried. But the truth is, the writer is just not that interesting, however cutely she dresses up an incident or a thought. Not for the over 35s.

What I thought

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