Excerpt from Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

My car was where I'd left it two weeks ago in the car park, unmarked, and with a sort of dog-like humility that was almost touching. On the back seat lay the familiar clutter. Boxes of books I hadn't had a chance to sort yet that I'd bought from the sale of an elderly woman's estate. On the passenger's seat the faxed message to the harbour master with its miraculous news of the impending visit of the cruise ship, the Pacific Star.

As I got in behind the wheel I could feel my old life crabbily demanding my attention.

On my mobile were twelve messages—three from Alice— so as I pulled out of the airport carpark I called up my elderly mother. The conversation went like this.

'How was Adie? Were you nice to him?'

'Of course I was nice.'

'He said you got drunk.'

'That's ridiculous.'

'And something about a black woman…'

Excerpted from Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones. Copyright © 2016 by Lloyd Jones. Excerpted by permission of Text Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.