Happy Wife

Nora Somerset is the protagonist of Happy Wife. She is 28 years old and characterized by her role as a housewife: Nora refers to herself repeatedly as “young, dumb, pretty wife” (236, 262), and specifically as the “second wife” (6, 92, 254, 287, 293, 295). Nora’s position as the second wife of the older, wealthy lawyer Will Somerset leaves her feeling vulnerable and insecure, as she fears her working-class background makes her a mismatch for Will. These tensions impact her marriage in the novel’s flashbacks and complicate her grief over Will’s disappearance in the present narrative timeline.  

Throughout the novel, Nora is defined as an outsider among the tight-knit Winter Park social circle, which is made up of women much wealthier and more socially prestigious than she is. From the beginning of Nora’s relationship with Will, the other Winter Park wives “glowered” (76) and “glared” (78) at her in public. Nora compares this open hostility to the animal kingdom, suggesting that the women treat her “like [she] was a predator—a threat to the natural order of their world” (78). The Winter Park social circle excludes Nora even at her own wedding celebration: “[P]hrases like ‘gold digger’ and ‘shotgun wedding’ bubbled up from the crowd” (131).