Book Review: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

Lauren comes home late one night, a little drunk, from a night out with her best friend, and is greeted by her husband. But Lauren has never been married and the man in her house is a complete stranger. Yet her phone is suddenly full of pictures of this man named Michael and everyone in her life accepts that they are married. As Lauren tries to puzzle out what is happening, Michael goes up into the addict and a different man comes down. In fact, every time he goes up to the attic, Lauren gets a new husband.

Thus follows a hilarious, tender, and sometimes stressful year in Lauren’s life. With every husband, her life changes, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Sometimes her hair is different, sometimes her job is different. Sometimes she still has her friends, sometimes she doesn’t. Some husbands are unkind, some are gross, at least one might be an evil millionaire. With each new husband, Lauren has to navigate how she fits into this new life but a new life is also available with every husband.

Lauren is immensely likeable and while the situation she finds herself in is absurd, her reactions and choices largely felt real and entirely true to who we knew her as. As a longtime single lady, she is thrown by finding herself in such a variety of committed relationships and she gets a deep dive course in what marriage can look like. I thought this was going to be another type of “messy woman” story but that doesn’t describe Lauren. She’s smart and well-grounded. She has a good support system around her and she (mostly) makes good choices. Learning that her very own attic seems to be providing her with a limitless supply of husbands, she sets out to find the perfect one. But what makes a husband perfect?

What I found most compelling and interesting about this unique novel were the ways that Lauren’s life changed with each husband. As mentioned, sometimes those changes were small. The apartment painted a different colour, gluten-free bread in the cupboard. Sometimes those changes were substantial. A severing of her closest friendships, her sister didn’t meet and marry her life partner after all. There are so many ways we might alter ourselves in a relationship, many of those without realizing. Gramazio presents this idea without judgement – the changes in Lauren’s life aren’t necessarily good or bad, simply a demonstration of the ways that none of us exist outside of our relationships.

I’m very impressed that this is Gramazio’s first novel and I look forward to more from her.