The Chosen

One Wednesday morning in November 1912 the ageing Thomas Hardy finds his wife Emma dying in her bedroom. Between his speaking to her and taking her in his arms, she has gone. The day before, he and Emma had exchanged bitter words – leading Hardy to wonder whether all husbands and wives end up as enemies to each other. This novel hauntingly searches the unknowable spaces between man and wife; memory and regret; life and art.