The Good Wife

Patty Dickerson is pregnant with her first child when her hubby, Tommy, is arrested on murder charges after he and a pal break into a house in upstate New York they mistakenly, drunkenly think is abandoned. Despite her mom’s long-held doubts about prison-bound Tommy, Patty becomes a modern-day Penelope (or fodder for a Jerry Springer episode), waiting for her man. The magnitude of her patience is revealed gradually, as O’Nan cleverly withholds details about the era of the arrest. Throughout, he depicts Patty’s working-class milieu with rare and clear-eyed compassion.