Gene Wilder

In 1903, a young concert violinist named Jeremy Webb one day goes from accomplished adagios with the Cleveland Orchestra to having a complete breakdown on stage. If he hadn't poured a glass of water down the throat of a tuba, maybe he wouldn't have beens

The Woman Who Wouldn't

Sarah Sammis

I like the walk the stacks at my library just to see what jumps out at me. On one of my recent walks I spotted The Woman Who Wouldn't by Gene Wilder. I stopped mid step, thinking, Gene Wilder writes books? I opened the cover to read the back flap and sure enough there was Gene Wilder, actor and author.

The Woman Who Wouldn't is a novella about an unlikely romance at a sanitarium at the turn of the last century. A concert violinist goes to Germany to recover from a nervous breakdown. While there he meets the woman who wouldn't and eventually befriends her.

When I started the book I was skeptical but by the end of the first chapter I was hooked. There's a subtle humor to the book that brings a human face to the patients instead of putting the focus on their conditions.

The Woman Who Wouldn't

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