ISBN 9781936932689, 1936932687
Trade Paperback | 368 pages
 
A novel of sex-positive awakening and burgeoning political resistance, set in Occupy-era New York City.
 
“Audacious and exhilarating in its candor, The Not Wives captures the heady mix of pleasures and agonies necessary to turn one’s life in a new, truer direction. Carley Moore attends to the complexities of urban living and activism with riveting clarity.” —Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew
 
The Not Wives traces the lives of three women as they navigate the Occupy Wall Street movement and each other. Stevie is a nontenured professor and recently divorced single mom; her best friend Mel is a bartender, torn between her longterm girlfriend and a desire to explore polyamory; and Johanna is a homeless teenager trying to find her way in the world.
 
In the midst of economic collapse and class conflict, late-night hookups and long-suffering exes, the three characters piece together a new American identity founded on resistance—against the looming shadow of financial precarity, the gentrification of New York, and the traditional role of a wife.