“There might be no enduring salvation for Lucille, but for Bergen’s readers there is something more valuable: a sustained encounter, on every page, with a character who lives as if she were among us. Her strength and her struggle are so quintessentially human that they act as an important reminder that our vulnerability and our perseverance is not for naught.” - The Manitoban “Lucille’s story and character reflect the realities of life, reassuring us that we are not alone in our joy or in our pain. David Bergen is an exceptional writer, harnessing his prose, its restraint a sign of its great power.” - Tom Rachman, author of The Italian Teacher She refuses to fade away nor will her grief. Does Lucille have a place anymore? She travels to Thailand and to France, seeking connections, still yearning. Years after the violent death of her son, the psychiatrist Lucille remains stuck, watching as her ex-husband starts a new family and as her grown daughters drift away. “A beautiful piece of writing - delicate, melancholic, searching. This is uncanny, discerning, merciful algebra on what love takes, and where it leaves us.” - Paige Cooper, author of Zolitude Out of Mind is a house of mirrors that reflects back, at every awful and astounding angle, the complete emotional taxonomy of living. “Bergen’s power as a writer pulls like an undertow. His is a vital literary voice.” - Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl

“Always incisive, richly evocative of our human experience, the work of David Bergen illuminates and exhilarates.

But what does Lucille want? Bergen asks, and with consummate respect for her autonomy, he follows her on a journey towards the freedom that comes in knowing your own desires.” - Joan Thomas, author of Five Wives In Out of Mind, Lucille has come to the end of her ways of knowing herself. “David Bergen’s language is so pure and he listens so attentively to his characters that reading his work always stills me, like a meditation.

Five wives by joan thomas