The Beauty of the Husband

A long-time love, now a crumbling marriage, unfolds in 29 ''tangos'' of narrative verse, informed by the romanticism of Keats, the wisdom of the classical world and, most importatnly, by Carson''s own unique sensibility. The unnamed narrator - sometimes ''I'', sometimes ''the wife'' - speaks of the man she calls only ''the husband'', illuminating moments that are by turn sensual, erotic, painful and heartbreaking. The Beauty of the Husband is a work that explores these oldest of lyrical subjects - beauty, desire, love, betrayal - with freshness and devastating power.