Book review: 'The Tiny Wife'

Book: The Tiny Wife
Andrew Kaufman
Harper Collins
88 pages
Rs125

A robber, wearing a flamboyant purple hat and brandishing a handgun, walks into a bank. He says to the terrified crowd of costumers and bank employees: “I demand only one thing from each of you and it is this: the item currently in your possession which holds the most sentimental value.” The puzzled crowd hands over various items: photos of children, a dog-eared copy of Camus’ The Stranger, a pressed flower now used as a bookmark, and so on. The robber leaves with one warning: he is stealing 51% of their souls; and they must learn to grow their souls back, or die.

So begins Andrew Kaufman’s 88-page novella. The characters go on to have wildly different experiences — a husband turns into a snowman, a baby starts shitting money, and mothers multiply into thousands of needle-sized, disapproving mothers. The main protagonist, Stacey Hinterland, discovers that she is shrinking at an increasing rate everyday, and there is nothing she — or her frantic husband — can do to stop her from eventually disappearing.

Kaufman’s book is not an inferior version of a full-length novel; it is a complete, weird and captivating description of the demons we carry around with us unknowingly. A girl, who got a tattoo of a lion to commemorate a painful break-up, wakes one day to find that her tattoo is a live lion that will chase her forever. It is only when she turns around to confront the lion that it leaves her. A baby starts shitting money, but also falls sick, and his father must choose between him and millions of dollars.

The Tiny Wife is the adult fairytale done right; saved from sentimentality by Kaufman’s wry sense of humour. Its only flaw is the right one: it leaves the reader wanting more.