THE HUSBANDS

“Love the one you’re with” is the song’s advice, but is that really still the best approach?

When Lauren, a single woman in London, returns home a little tipsy after a friend’s hen party, she encounters a strange man in her flat. He sounds like he knows her and, despite her concerns, doesn’t seem to represent a threat. It takes some time for Lauren to figure out that he’s actually the husband she’s somehow acquired in another life. It takes her more time to figure out that the attic over her flat, courtesy of an electrical malfunction, will be sending her an apparently endless stream of husbands once she sends each previous one back upstairs—this is not a novel about bigamy. Lauren finds her own circumstances (job, hairstyle, decorating scheme) changed with each subsequent spouse, and she eventually realizes this is not a “time loop” she’s in; time is advancing as she works her way through her possible spouses. Some of the husbands are tolerable, some attractive, some complete “no’s” (who wants to spend a lifetime with someone who likes to nestle the tip of their nose in the corner of your closed eye?). Gramazio’s often comedic fantasy rom-com proceeds from an unlikely premise, but the plot allows the author to explore current attitudes and approaches to dating and mating from a fresh perspective: Given the infinite variety of people in the world, how can you know “the one” when there may be a better one just around the corner (or descending the attic staircase)? Lauren’s madcap romp with the parade of spouses takes a few serious turns, particularly when one is reluctant to climb back upstairs, but the makings of a comic miniseries are all here.

A fun take on a big question.