Charlotte Mendelson’s last book, 2022’s The Exhibitionist, was praised for its frank and honest examination of dysfunctional relationships. It was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and named The Times Novel of the Year. With such accolades, it’s no surprise that Mendelson returns to the themes of abuse and betrayal in her new novel, Wife – albeit with an important twist. This time, the dysfunctional relationship is between two women.

Mendelson is an extraordinary writer whose prose drifts into clichés without ever falling into them. Her characters are complete and complex, her tone clear and familiar, her prose clear and full of delightfully bitchy moments (of one unattractive woman, she writes, “She looked as if gravity had crushed her”). In the character of Australian academic Dr. Penny Cartwright, she has created the world’s worst wife. Penny is also perhaps the world’s worst person, period: biphobic, obsessive-compulsive and sometimes just plain evil.

She preys on the weak and submissive Zoe Strampel, a specialist in ancient Greek tragedy and our twenty-something protagonist, whom she meets at a music concert at her faculty. Zoe is completely enamored with the glamorous antipode – her life without taboos with her partner Justine, her confidence in all areas, both academic and sexual. Mendelson paints an honest, sometimes uncomfortable portrait of an abusive relationship that begins as an affair (Penny and Justine live together in Justine’s apartment, Zoe moves in, and Penny, who set the whole thing up, is horrified at the idea that people might mistake them for a three-way relationship). It ends in disaster.

The story begins at the end, as Zoe tries to leave her marital home. “Nobody explains how to leave someone who is constantly present… who has forbidden you to leave,” says a friend who helps her. Then it goes back to the beginning, with each new chapter labeled “Then” or “Now.” For all of Mendelson’s talent, this quickly becomes tiring: Fed up of the postmodern trend of authors interrupting their own storylines? Even when it’s artfully handled, it’s a frustrating experience, as if the author doesn’t trust his own story to be told linearly. Still, it’s a little less annoying than more classic tropes of the LGBT canon, where books are divided into tomes separated by chronological jumps.

“Wife” is very broad and touches on themes common throughout the gay community: how to come out, how to find your tribe, how to start a family. Mendelson has previously spoken about her own experience of coming out in her early twenties.

As far as domestic car crash stories go, this one is decidedly modern, and feels like a necessary examination of what happens in relationships where seduction is based on power plays. Mendelson challenges our contemporary, kink-positive etiquette—which too often downplays abuse within a relationship by dismissing it as part of their tango. None of this makes the story an easy read. Zoe’s being bullied into submission by insults in the early days of her relationship with Penny makes for a sense of jarring. Some passages are downright provocative—though of course that’s the point of literature, and a testament to Mendelson’s talent for hyperreal fiction.

The Exhibitionist, played by Ray Hanrahan, is a study of terrible spouses in a heterosexual family. What makes Wife special is the lesbian nature of the relationship, which brings to light a hard and necessary truth: that gay couples and gay parents tend to be just as awful as “the Hetties.”

Wife by Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle, £18.99) is out now

William Hosie is a writer for the Evening Standard