Patrick McGrath’s The Wardrobe Mistress

Patrick McGrathThe Wardrobe Mistress(Hutchinson, 2017) The first half of the novel focuses on Joan’s grief. She confronts an apartment that is full of the ghost of Gricey, turns occasionally to “Uncle Alcohol” for solace, and drifts into an affair with Gricey’s understudy, Frank Stone. Joan meets Frank when she goes to the theater to see him play Gricey’s last role, Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Stone’s ability to perfectly mimic her dead husband leads Joan to believe that Gricey resides within Stone, setting up a pattern of tragic grief-driven events that provide much of the pathos in the novel. The sexual tension between Stone and Joan is deftly etched, focusing not simply on their age difference (Stone is much younger) but also the post-war poverty that makes food and clothing (and gin) precious commodities. Joan tailors her dead husband’s suits to her young lover’s body, thereby creating in her own mind a space for her dead husband “to return. Patrick McGrath’s The Wardrobe Mistress

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