Holly Gramazio’s The Husbands is Jenna Bush Hager’s latest Today show book club pick.
Gramazio’s comic novel, published Tuesday by Doubleday, follows a London woman who comes home one night and finds that, to her surprise, she has been married to a man for several years. That husband is soon replaced by another one, and she discovers that her attic is constantly producing new spouses. A critic for Kirkus called the book “a fun take on a big question.”
Hager announced the novel’s selection on the Today show. “This book is so good,” she said. “It’s about a woman named Lauren who finds out that her attic produces a steady stream of husbands. So guess what? She gets tired of one, she sends him right back up there.”
“So it’s a fantasy,” Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie interjected, to laughter from Hager.
“It is a commentary on dating, swiping,” Hager said. “She’s looking for something to complete her when it might just already be there. It is humorous, hilarious, and it’s a love story, which we all need.”
Gramazio, a video game designer, told Today.com that she created a “husband generator” to help her write the novel.
“You’d hit a button and you’d get a random husband, with two to three sentences,” she said. “A lot of them you’d be like, ‘This isn’t anything. This doesn’t feel like a person.’ But sometimes, you’d be like, ‘This could be a guy!’”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
