From Publishers Weekly
Glave’s second collection is a disquieting, graphic, semi-experimental compendium examining violence and ignorance in and out of wartime.

After opening with a contemporary relationship drama, Glave makes the jarring transition to armed conflicts, invasion and genocide. What most unifies these works is what’s left unsaid—secrets are a constant, and there are virtually no names.

Glave’s style, full of interruptions, ellipses, unconventional text treatments and poemlike breaks, sends each story whirling thickly toward its end: in the title story, a woman called She is haunted by grotesque nightmares of dismembered body parts raining on her house and garden, after discovering her high-ranking husband’s wartime atrocities. In the allegorical Milk/Sea; Sentience, the dreams of a sleeping village of women heal war’s wounds.

Between takes a step back to focus on a couple, telling the story of two racist gay men in an interracial relationship; cleverly, Glave refers to both as one of them. Laced with grisly details, this daring but uneven collection may not find a wide audience, but makes an intriguing experiment in post-postmodern war fiction.

Purchase The Torturer’s Wife Here

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Publisher: City Lights Publishers
ISBN-10: 0872864669
ISBN-13: 9780872864665
Publication Date: December 2008