The Beauty of the Husband Book by Anne Carson

The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson is a narrative poetry collection structured in 29 "tangos" that chronicles the painful, addictive dissolution of a marriage. The narrator remains trapped in a cycle of heartbreak and forgiveness for her unfaithful, pathological liar of a spouse simply because of his overwhelming physical beauty. The work serves as a tragic, modern exploration of John Keats's philosophy that "beauty is truth," even when it is destructive.