The Husbands by Holly Gramazio: a world of endless possible husbands

Lauren is a single woman who arrives home after a night out with her soon-to-be-married best friend only to find a strange man in her apartment. She has never met him before and has no idea who he is, but she appears to be married to him. This is the hooky beginning of Australian computer-game designer Holly Gramazio’s debut novel, The Husbands.

It turns out that Lauren’s attic is some kind of magic portal into a world of endless possible husbands. Every time a husband goes into the attic, a new one comes out. Some are better than others, some are more difficult to get back up into the attic, and the ones she wants to keep, infuriatingly, misadventure back up into the attic all by themselves.

There is much fun to be had with this high-concept idea, as when Lauren decides based on the mildest of irritating behaviours that “she’s sorry, but she’s going to have to send him back”.

Despite its lightness, however, the book prompts unexpectedly philosophical questions. Lauren is decisive about the husbands she sends back to the attic and I wondered if there wasn’t a message in there about not settling. Likewise, the book seems to ask how in control we really are of our lives, our identities, our destinies – are we more defined by circumstance or by our actual wants and needs? Overall though, the book is a witty commentary on singledom, marriage and modern dating. How easily Lauren returns her husbands to the attic feels like a metaphor for how readily we dismiss potential matches on dating apps.

Oisín McKenna on his intoxicating debut novel: ‘I thought of it as writing in a big key, the way a pop song might be’

---

Openings by Lucy Caldwell: Enlightening and enriching collection of stories that closes a loose triptych

---

Ukrainian author Tanja Maljartschuk: ‘Our national memory is a mass grave ... No one was ever punished for all these crimes’

---

Should you have children? These five philosophical questions can help you decide

---

I have to confess to becoming a little impatient with the concept after a while – why does she not simply break up with a husband, or better still turn an age-old literary trope on its head and lock him in the attic? – but it’s testament to Gramazio that her wit and humour keep the reader engaged and my curiosity to see how things resolved always outweighed my irritation.

The Husbands is an entertaining novel with a highly original concept that Gramazio manages to control well, no small achievement for a debut author. If you liked Guillaume Musso’s Girl On Paper or Andrew Kaufman’s All My Friends Are Superheroes or even the film Being John Malkovich, you’ll certainly enjoy this whimsical novel.