Other Woman A Novel [Hardcover]

"The Other Woman" brings us a young African-American woman (the book wraps us up so totally from the first page that we don't realize until the end that we never learn her name) who supposedly has it all, or most of it -- a prestige job as a news editor, a '64 Mustang and a handsome husband named Charles. She works nights and holidays; he works days as a middle school teacher, and they're too busy to have a family. But she's totally devoted to him, when she has time from her job, and he's devoted to her, or so she thinks. But a message from an unknown individual named David Lawrence blows her complacency to smithereens: he tells her their respective spouses have been cheating on them both.

Shocked and furious, the wife confronts Charles, who admits it all but says it's over. But she doesn't believe him, and David isn't about to let it go. His manhood has been insulted, and he's out for blood. Charles and Jessica, David's wife, a phys ed teacher at Charles's school, have been careless enough to leave all the sordid details in e-mails and instant messages; he hacks into Jessica's account, prints out the evidence, and everything hits the fan. Meanwhile, Charles' wife is about to show him that two can play at this dirty game, and the mess replicates exponentially.

Dickey is completely convincing in showing us the pain and confusion of the wife, and also the shame and conniving of Charles, the headstrong cluelessness of Jessica, and David's rage and lust for revenge. It's hard to determine who is the more contemptible -- Charles, who leaves Jessica hemorrhaging in a hotel room following a miscarriage while he runs home to his wife in a state of denial; or David, who sends the evidence of Charles's and Jessica's affair to their co-workers, students and the students' parents, effectively destroying both their careers. Jessica, meanwhile, is a pathetic individual, thinking she's found her soulmate in Charles and brought up cruelly short. And the book's very title, "The Other Woman", makes us wonder who actually is the other woman -- the wife thinks Jessica is the other woman, until she herself becomes the other woman, and Jessica accuses David of being so wrapped up in his career and neglecting her in the process, that his job is the other woman. How the whole mess gets sorted out in the end, I'm not saying -- suffice to say that messes like this one leave their sorry residue around to taint every life they touch.

"The Other Woman" is a riveting novel of sex, betrayal, marriage, friendship, and how lies and deception can undo it all. Dickey is a born storyteller, and this book is a compelling read.