The Original Husband

From the acclaimed author of Like Mother, Like Mother comes a deeply moving novel inspired by Kingsley Amis’ improbable living arrangement in his final years with the ex-wife he abandoned.

Once upon a time, Maisie Morgan and Jack McLeod had a rare kind of love. He’d have died for her. She’d have killed for him. But Jack has a careless, meaningless affair, destroying their marriage. Decades later, the funeral of a friend brings them together. Old, broke, and terminally ill, Jack asks the unthinkable of a happily remarried Maisie: somewhere to live out his last days.

Witty, insightful, and with candor, The Original Husband reckons with the vows of marriage—in sickness and in health, till death do us part—as Maisie finds herself questioning what, if anything, she owes her ex-husband in his time of need.