The Gardener's Wife's Mistress
Cassondra Windwalker’s contemplative novel begins with the sudden, challenging loss of a spouse.
When Hayden loses his wife, Shelly, to a sudden stroke, he struggles to manage his landscaping business and take care of himself. The stress of the loss is worsened by an investment that Shelly’s will grants him: partial ownership in a flower shop she kept secret from her husband.
After some digging, Hayden discovers that his late wife was having an affair with the shop’s other owner, Rachel. Feeling betrayed, but now invested in the safety of the homeless transgender teenagers Rachel and Shelly were housing in the back of the flower shop, Hayden decides what role his late wife’s mistress will play in his life.
The novel’s comprehensive depiction of grief creates closeness with Hayden, whose determination, aimlessness, and obsession move the story forward day by day. The chapters often describe his thoughts and rationalizations in exquisite detail, with lengthy explorations of his feelings of loss as he mourns Shelly. Hayden’s identity as a gardener informs all of this processing too. The novel implements an unending wellspring of botanical metaphors that deepen Hayden’s character, cataloging his changing relationship to life, death, and loss.
Despite the mire of grief, Hayden’s growing involvement with his small town’s transgender activism scene signposts his growth. He starts out well-meaning but ignorant, and the novel’s descriptions of trans characters’ appearances captures his initial awkwardness. Benefiting fom Rachel’s didactic advice on being an ally and the lively cast of trans youth who push him beyond his comfort zone, Hayden is forced to balance morality with proximity to the emotional wounds Rachel opens in him.
With its deliberate reflections on grief and loss, the novel The Gardener’s Wife’s Mistress evaluates endings, beginnings, and the connectedness of humans to nature.
Reviewed by
Violet Glenn
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