The Last Original Wife

It’s an easy read with some parts that made me laugh out loud while reading. However, there is one aspect that really bothered me and detracted from my enjoyment of the book – the timeline doesn’t add up. So much of the basic premise of the story doesn’t make sense. Very poor editing that this error wasn’t caught.

Leslie left college 1 semester short of graduation to get married (and she was pregnant). That would have put her about 20-21 years old. The ages of her kids and the fact that she and Wes are closing in on their 30th wedding anniversary all make sense given that “fact”. However, in the book, Leslie is turning 60 and Wes is close to retirement. That’s not possible. The entire storyline doesn’t fit or make sense. She’d be turning 50, not 60. It was really hard to get past that major flaw – it bugged me through the entire story.

This was my first D.B. Frank book. I enjoyed the actual writing and some of the descriptions and southern sayings in the story (although there was a bit more honey this and honey that to my taste) but the writing was easy, clear, and humorous at times so I had hopes for the story early on. As for the story itself? That’s ANOTHER story!

I started out really liking it. I felt sorry for the character Les and was pulling for her to make a change and was curious to see what she might do to old Wes to either change him or teach him a lesson. But then, lets see her kids have been grown and gone for a while, even though they were kind of bums. So why didnt she go back to school? Get a job? Volunteer? Yoga? She just keeps living the same day/day and boozing it up at the club with her husband night/night. She gets with her old friend Danette and harps about the gold digging Barbies coming to get their husbands but she still does nothing, even after a Barbie snags Danettes. Suddenly by accident she discovers shes uber rich! Money gives her the courage to visit her brother in Charleston, SC, who her husband has not allowed her to see in years due to his bigot belief system. Then we discover the brother lives a mere 5 hour drive away from Atlanta. Funny, but Frank didnt paint Les as so beaten down and overridden by her husband that she couldnt have spent a tank of gas and driven down to see him anytime she wanted. Wes was stingy but maybe if she traded 1 expensive cocktail dress for a tank of gas now and then?

So while visiting her brother she meets up with her old high school flame, who is a successful doctor and well to do. In a few short weeks, they are an item again. And yet Les still doesnt want to divorce her stingy husband. Instead, she presents him with an ultimatum that he legally split most of their assets, buy her a house in Charleston where her new beau is, with furniture, and keep up her health insurance, etc. All this so she can be with her old flame while living off the fat of Wes wallet. Meanwhile Wes wants her back to take care of him. We dont want her to go back and Les doesnt want to go back either– but she also doesnt want to let that wallet out of her clutches! Still, she continues to act like hes the one keeping her from moving forward. Meanwhile, the old boyfriend is just waiting in the wings like a weak-minded putz! But on his behalf, the writer gave him no personality at all. That aside, how was Les behaving any different than the Barbies at that point? Then suddenly towards the end, the no account kids see the light after she gives them a long overdue tongue lashing about their lackadaisical lifestyle. Really? To Les delight, the deadbeat son gets with her dead best friends (rich) daughter, and her daughter Charlotte snags a rich doctor. It came off as a Do as I do not as I say kind of lesson from mother to kids.

The end wraps up quickly as if the writer suddenly became as bored with these plastic people as I was. Everyone suddenly sees the light and all the characters sing kumbaya and the stars align and they do the right thing and live happily ever after. Pffftttt! I felt misled about 35% into the story. I thought I would travel with the main character as she escaped from an unhappy marriage, meet herself at age 60, and let me (us) cheer her along her journey. But no, it was just another bed-hopping story that no one had to give up, do, or discover anything for themselves in their little KardCASHian world. Oh honey, please!! While the writer has good skills, the story and character development sorely lacks. Jo the dog was the only one who jumped off the page! Perhaps it would have come off with more substance if Ms. Frank had allowed one of Harlan’s ghosts to tell the story!

I loved this book. I first read it years ago and yet I love it still. Despite the unraveling going on, I never felt sad while reading this and the humor is just what I need in a book. I am completely a “northerner” but I adore this author’s books. Her characters are well drawn, her plots hold my interest (which is sometimes harder to hold these days), and the humor is just right. Keep on writing Dorothea. This reader needs you.

I loved this book but I took away a star for the age mistake (if the heroine became pregnant and married at the last semester of college for 30 years, she should have been 51 or 52 instead of almost 60). It was enough to pull me out of the story, but I am glad I stuck with it. I lived in Charleston for over a year. The book not only took me back to a place I loved, but shined a light on the peculiar Southerness that is Charleston. There is a type of acceptance for people born there that transplants never receive no matter how long they call Charleston home. You meet people who own a 12th of a Plantation, drive a Beamer, and cannot pay their bills. You meet someone who works in a hardware store they don’t own but they still have standing because of their family name. But the beaches are beautiful.

The book also captures a moment of rebellion. Leslie has buckled under to Wesley’s bullying because of an unplanned pregnancy. She finds out her husband has made her shop with coupons, never own a new car and bullies her for the sake of a couple hundred dollars, but they have 22 million in a joint account she knows nothing about. After 30 years of making do an being a doormat for everyone, Leslie has an epiphany when she falls into an uncovered manhole and it takes forty-five minutes for her husband to notice she is not there. They are in Scotland so he can golf and he does not see the point in missing his tee time, just because she is hospitalized in a foreign country with a broken arm and fractured front teeth and a torn up lip.

Leslie leaves and goes to rekindle the relationship with her gay older brother that she has marginalized to make Wesley happy and recovers the person she was and the love she lost. Leslie finds help from Ms. Jo and her pearls and an obscure Southern author. Digging into the history of her hometown and the history of her past, helps her make decisions on how to go forward into her future. Every wife has always wanted to run away at least once from her life. I loved the relationships of the characters and I am glad I did not let an editing mistake make me miss this story.

This was more of an awakening than a love story. Les had begun to realize that her friends of many years were being replaced by younger women. Now she is the last one who has stayed in her marriage. It was not anything that she could put her fingers on, but Wes, her husband was not able to be there for her. He had his business and golf. So they went to separate marriage counseling sessions. This is their awakening that the marriage was in deep trouble. What happens when she goes away to find herself? What does he do? Can the marriage be saved.

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