The Poets’ Wives

Park’s ninth book (after The Light of Amsterdam) is divided into three novella-like sections, each focusing on the wife of a poet. In the first section, William Blake’s wife Catherine laments her poverty and the woes of living with a brilliant man who isn’t granted the recognition he’s due. Set in Russia of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, the second section tracks the harrowing, fear-filled life of Nadezhda Mandelstam after her husband, Osip, dies in a Soviet internment camp. On the move, Nadezhda commits Osip’s poems to memory in an effort to preserve them for future generations. The third section, which is the most intriguing and most plot-driven, focuses on Lydia, the fictional wife of a fictional Irish poet who demands that his family scatter his ashes after he dies. Lydia’s daughters offer their support, but try to understand why she stayed with such an adulterous and cold man. The first two sections are frustrating, and the use of present tense and skipping around in time detract from the power of the narrative and its sensory detail. Though offering a promising premise, this novel lacks depth and provides little payoff. (Apr.)