Buy new:
-7% $16.79
FREE delivery Friday, May 24 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$16.79 with 7 percent savings
List Price: $18.00

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Friday, May 24 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Thursday, May 23. Order within 11 hrs 6 mins
In Stock
$$16.79 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$16.79
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day easy returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$14.99
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery June 2 - 12 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery May 31 - June 7
$$16.79 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$16.79
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Ursula Parrott
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Ex-Wife (Mcnally Editions, 17) Paperback – May 2, 2023

by Ursula Parrott (Author), Marc Parrott (Afterword), Alissa Bennett (Foreword)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 138 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$16.79","priceAmount":16.79,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"16","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"79","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"yEx5wnXxmlKvMrD0BzOHgNwPUeOy6zgrYC1R%2BnRedu0%2F2FDffn3KpejVYHsHGY1uS52nb1eUNsmPeI9bap3e%2B5xPst%2BPilX0WEj0K3z4bRbsKsjG3TaoPCCS4HxHv3VK3fu1Gmv6MgN%2Bz5TPh6biuA%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$14.99","priceAmount":14.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"14","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"yEx5wnXxmlKvMrD0BzOHgNwPUeOy6zgr4JRgLc5dD1L49DvzxUckdwJPdOP95iIFbNoewEWQ2qv%2BdqQbSr%2FmSEtnl6B7YvdGP%2FPQwOsNGWCaA%2FayrtPuuz7bU6Ijxh9XYuYtCHbCefr1%2Fpgl1BHFHTDdlEWaDz%2FSiJTWkryjo3QR77mwFcNUSmqOydPlKItR","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, Ex-Wife is the story of a divorce and its aftermath that scandalized the Jazz Age—and still resonates today.

It's 1924, and Peter and Patricia have what looks to be a very modern marriage. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work, Patricia as a head copywriter at a major department store. When it comes to sex with other people, both believe in “the honesty policy.” Until they don‘t. Or, at least, until Peter doesn‘t—and a shell-shocked, lovesick Patricia finds herself starting out all over again, but this time around as a different kind of single woman: the ex-wife.

An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, Ex-Wife captures the speakeasies, night clubs, and parties that defined Jazz Age New York—alongside the morning-after aspirin and calisthenics, the lunch-hour visits to the gym, the girl-talk, and the freedoms and anguish of solitude. It also casts a cool eye on the bedrooms and the doctor’s offices where, despite rising hemlines, the men still call the shots. The result is a unique view of what its author Ursula Parrott called “the era of the one-night stand”: an era very much like our own.
Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    232 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    McNally Editions
  4. Publication date
    May 2, 2023
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    194602256X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1946022561
  8. See all details
Next page
Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Frequently bought together

Ex-Wife (Mcnally Editions, 17)
$16.79
Get it as soon as Friday, May 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel
$17.08
Get it as soon as Friday, May 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
Tom Lake: A Reese’s Book Club Pick
$15.74
Get it as soon as Friday, May 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Like Fitzgerald but from a woman’s perspective . . . Ex-Wife is a sharply observed, intimate account of a failed marriage, several failed love affairs, an abortion, numerous alcoholic interludes and one-night stands . .. as if Dorothy Parker, Noël Coward, and Oscar Wilde had collaborated to examine the war between the sexes in the post-Victorian era." -- Joyce Carol Oates ― New York Review of Books

“I’m tempted to simply type out a list of quotations from this book and call it a day, adding only a ‘BUY IT NOW!’ button at the bottom . . . The approach [feels] too advanced even for now. How did Ursula Parrott do it? . . . We must conclude that she possessed supernatural gifts of insight, as well as a talent for acid aphorisms and peppery dialogue . . . This edition features a gorgeous introduction by Alissa Bennett . . . Read if you like: Being wicked, shopping, breakfast for dinner, bearing distress with dignity, Elizabeth Jane Howard’s The Cazalet Chronicles.” -- Molly Young ― New York Times

“Ex-Wife presented readers and critics with a new woman, one who was pursuing new vocational, economic, and romantic freedoms. She spent her days chasing a career, while her nights were a boozy smear of restaurants, speakeasies, and amorous encounters. She was exciting and discomfiting and morally questionable . . . But Ex-Wife, which is now being reissued (by McNally Editions) for the first time in more than thirty years, wasn’t the racy, frothy endorsement of cosmopolitan white women’s liberation that readers were primed to expect." -- Jessica Winter ― New Yorker

“[Let us] revel in the surprising freshness of its prose . . . Ex-Wife depicted remarkable erotic freedom . . . The other thing that glows in Ex-Wife, and the biography of its author, is New York City: the lights, the fights, the freedoms, constraints and terrible costs." -- Alexandra Jacobs ― New York Times

"Take one shot of Dorothy Parker and two shots of Dawn Powell, stir briskly, add a sour cherry, and you have the intoxicating Ex-Wife." ― Air Mail

"Deftly crafted, wryly observed, and thoroughly unsettling . . . Caught between Victorian sexual mores and the libertinism of interwar Greenwich Village, Patricia brings a gimlet eye to the pervasive misogyny and sexual hypocrisies of her generation." -- Jessica Fletcher ― The Baffler


"As it went on I found myself more and more moved by the writer's ability to render on the page the complexity of lost love coupled with the loss of first youth, and then second youth. Quite remarkable." -- Vivian Gornick

"Ex-Wife is every bit as engaging and thought-provoking as it was in 1929. The novel can be read as a period piece about the 1920s, the emergence of flappers and independent career women, but it is also an anatomy of a marriage and a divorce that takes a searing look at a conflicted woman . . . The novel’s passages on female friendship are as profound as Patricia’s efforts to become her own woman in the company of the men she desires." -- Carl Rollyson ― New York Sun

About the Author

Ursula Parrott (1899-1957) was born Katherine Ursula Towle in Dorchester, Massachusetts. After graduating from Radcliffe College, she became a newspaper reporter in New York and married her fellow journalist Lindesay Marc Parrott. The experience of their divorce helped inspire her first novel, Ex-Wife, which was published anonymously in 1929 and sold 100,000 copies in its first year. Parrott became one of the most successful female writers of the 1930s, adapting several of her bestsellers for the screen, including Strangers May Kiss and Next Time We Live. Her tumultuous private life included three more marriages, rumored liaisons with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and the jazz guitarist Michael Neely Bryan. She died of cancer on a charity ward in New York, having spent the small fortune she earned with her pen.

Alissa Bennett is an essayist whose work addresses fandom, celebrity, and popular culture.

Marc Parrott (1923–1988) was the only son of Lindesay Marc Parrott and Ursula Parrott.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ McNally Editions; Later prt. edition (May 2, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 232 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 194602256X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1946022561
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 138 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Ursula Parrott

Ursula Parrott

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
138 global ratings
Still Engrossing
4 Stars
Still Engrossing
I never thought I'd see a Kindle edition of a novel by the long-forgotten Ursula Parrott, let alone of the one which was filmed in 1930 as "The Divorcee" with a luminous (and Oscar-winning) Norma Shearer. Despite being nearly 100 years old, this novel really doesn't seem all that dated, and proves to be a still engrossing read. Parrott was a talented writer, and it's a shame that she died in oblivion. She deserves to be remembered.
Hide
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

TGM
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Illuminating. Highly Recommended.
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2023
Verified Purchase
After World War I, the pre-war social mores for this novel’s protagonist, Patricia, give way to divorce, speakeasies, getting soused almost every night, promiscuity, and doomed romantic relationships. Ursula Parrott’s handling of that pre-war to post-war transition is as good as Fitzgerald’s or Hemingway’s. Unlike Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Parrott gives us what it was like for a woman.

The rat-a-tat-tat dialogue is extremely mannered (far too “crafted”), the book ends too neatly, and the characters, while drunk, couldn’t possibly be as articulate as Parrott makes them, but these flaws are forgivable because most of the characters, like Patricia, are interesting and likable.

This is a 4-star novel that earns its 5th star because of how it illuminates how life was for women — not just divorcées — in New York City during the 1920s.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jeff
4.0 out of 5 stars Still Engrossing
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2023
I never thought I'd see a Kindle edition of a novel by the long-forgotten Ursula Parrott, let alone of the one which was filmed in 1930 as "The Divorcee" with a luminous (and Oscar-winning) Norma Shearer. Despite being nearly 100 years old, this novel really doesn't seem all that dated, and proves to be a still engrossing read. Parrott was a talented writer, and it's a shame that she died in oblivion. She deserves to be remembered.
Customer image
Jeff
4.0 out of 5 stars Still Engrossing
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2023
I never thought I'd see a Kindle edition of a novel by the long-forgotten Ursula Parrott, let alone of the one which was filmed in 1930 as "The Divorcee" with a luminous (and Oscar-winning) Norma Shearer. Despite being nearly 100 years old, this novel really doesn't seem all that dated, and proves to be a still engrossing read. Parrott was a talented writer, and it's a shame that she died in oblivion. She deserves to be remembered.
Images in this review
Customer image Customer image
Customer imageCustomer image
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Pasiphae
5.0 out of 5 stars I was unprepared for how timely this book is, all these years later
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2023
Verified Purchase
In a beautiful and breezy voice, the author describes an open marriage that devolves into violence and divorce, and the main character's attempt to heal from both. Her Jazz Age freedom becomes its own trap. Her descriptions of a long-past New York, her work and wardrobe, cocktails and speakeasies--fantastic. THe book can also be heartbreaking. The only part of this book that didn't entertain me was the epistolary section with her second love. Women have been asking themselves what they gave up when they gained certain freedoms for a century, now. I guess we are who we are, today and yesterday.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Lectrice avide
5.0 out of 5 stars Prescient.
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2023
Verified Purchase
A young woman discovers herself after an early divorce and puts her finger on what still hurts today. The book was written in the 1930s and still asks a lot of the right questions. Proto feminist, smart, funny and a lovely vignette of the times.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Nora M. Mantell
5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2023
Verified Purchase
I loved reading this book. The clothes, the food, the booze, the pain are a Time Machine to the twenties!
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Christina E. Mitchell
4.0 out of 5 stars Things Almost Never Change
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2003
I wanted to purchase a copy of this book when I became interested in a completely selfish amature study of pre-Production Code films. After viewing "The Divorcee," I knew I had to get a copy of the book upon which the movie was based. What I didn't expect however, is that for an intallment-authored magazine story, a common form of entertainment for the masses prior to television, written in 1929, very little seems to have changed. Much of the dialogue still occurs in 2003 and you find yourself relying on the prohibition life of New York to keep you in the proper era while reading. Although not a feminist book (it actually petitions against feminism in jibing ways), it does show independant qualities in women entwined with very human emotions. The book is not among the great literature of our time, but does demonstrate an historical perspective that is quite fascinating.
19 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Dee
5.0 out of 5 stars Great insight of life in the roaring twenties
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2023
Verified Purchase
The culture of life for women in various eras has always been of interest to me. What was then taboo is commonplace today. The author fleshes out the loneliness and desire in living by society’s standards. A very thoughtful read.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
ellen bee
1.0 out of 5 stars I had to put it down. Rated no stars.
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2023
Verified Purchase
When I read that the newlyweds took a long tour around Europe, mostly drinking and spending the generous wedding gifts of money mostly on expensive restaurants and bars - no mention of any art or historical sites, just drinking and waking up until they ran out of money and had to go home - I scowled but kept reading thinking they would grow up a bit and the real story could begin.

But that seemed to be the real story. Their baby died when the mother had their first child in Boston where she left him with her family at the age of three months to visit her husband who needed to keep his job in NYC. She stayed for a week.

That stopped my breath. I read a bit more, but this was apparently just the tale of a narcissist. I tossed the book out.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

nyog
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely unique voice!
Reviewed in Canada on October 12, 2023
Verified Purchase
This book paints a scene, a set of people, and the heart of the protagonist with strokes and swathes of text.
Report