The Crane Wife

Sometimes a viral essay is just a viral essay. Other times, as with Hauser's story of breaking off her engagement (written for The Paris Review), a piece that spoke to millions will lead to something bigger - in this case, an absorbing memoir in essays

New York Times Book Review, Editors' Pick

Outstanding . . . An elegant masterpiece . . . Wry but also warm and generous

Roxane Gay

Bold and brilliant and psychologically exquisite, CJ Hauser is a deeply gifted and generous writer. THE CRANE WIFE is enthralling

Charlotte Fox Weber, author of WHAT WE WANT

Brilliant and beautiful . . . An absolute must-read

Frances Cha, author of IF I HAD YOUR FACE

A deeply personal and vivacious memoir . . . eye-wateringly funny . . . [and] intensely introspective as she focuses on what she is looking for and what she feels is missing

Irish Examiner

Funny and tender

Sun

Hauser is refreshingly candid and self-aware. They're unafraid to get into the hard stuff-and it's that vulnerability that makes their writing so accessible. Simultaneously clever, heartfelt, and wrenching, The Crane Wife underlines the messy relationship we all have with love

TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2022

After reading this memoir-in-essays by the warm, wise, wry, and wonderful CJ Hauser, author of the viral Paris Review essay "The Crane Wife," you'll have to go fix your face. Were you crying laughing or just crying? Both? Splash some cold water on your cheeks. That's it. Now, go forth in peace with a new understanding of what it means to live and love

Garden & Gun, Best Southern Books of 2022

Thoughtful and fitfully funny . . . Across 17 confessional essays, we find [CJ] furtively spreading her grandparents' ashes at their old house in Martha's Vineyard, contemplating breast reduction surgery and reflecting on her relationships with a high-school boyfriend and a divorcee who is clearly still in love with his ex

Guardian, Best Memoirs of 2022

Stunning and interrogative. . . Brilliant. . . Calling Hauser 'honest' and 'vulnerable' feels inadequate. She embraces and even celebrates her flaws, and she revels in being a provocateur. . . Much has been written on the themes Hauser excavates here, yet her perspective is singular, startlingly so. Many narratives still position finding the perfect match as a measure of whether we've led successful lives. The Crane Wife dispenses with that. For that reason, Hauser's worldview feels fresh and even radical

Oprah Daily

Intimate, all-too-relatable magic. Hauser writes like she's whispering hard-earned secrets to a friend, picking apart how she has been held hostage to her own fantasies about love and happiness in warm and vulnerable scenes. . . What a gift it is, to have the curtains lift and let us all in

Electric Lit

As Hauser grapples with the changing shape of her life story, it's fitting that the shape of each essay and, indeed, the shape of the collection itself, are self-consciously experimental in form. . . Reading The Crane Wife is a bit like following Hauser into the Mirror Maze, her voice as narrator guiding the way through and out. Whether writing about familial or cultural stories, each text becomes a mirror in which Hauser sees herself reflected back. And in her willingness to turn inward, to truly face herself, Hauser's essays open outward, becoming themselves mirrors into which readers might gaze

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