Willie Masters' lonesome wife

In this homage to the pleasures of language, William Gass equates his text with the body of Babs Masters, the lonesome wife of the title, to explore the relationship between a woman and her lover, as well as a book and its reader. Disappointed by her inattentive husband/reader, Babs engages in an exuberant display of the physical charms of language to entice both her new lover and the reader.