Hausfrau

I first heard about Jill Alexander Essbaum's novel when it was mentioned as the next Fifty Shades of Grey, which pretty much made me dismiss it out of hand. Then I began to run into laudatory mentions, including in The New York Times Book Review podcast, and a review here by a reader whose opinion I think highly of. So when I saw it in the bookstore, I had to pick it up and read it right away.

It really, really is not like Fifty Shades of Grey. The protagonist, Anna, lacks agency, preferring to just go along with whatever anyone with a stronger personality suggests. She gets married and has three children without putting much thought into it and, now living in Switzerland, near Zurich, she lives as a stay-at-home mom, not so much by show more choice, but simply because she hasn't made an effort to do anything on her own. She neither drives nor has a bank account. Her mother-in-law does a large part of the childcare duties, leaving Anna adrift and depressed. She eventually, at the urging of her husband, begins therapy and, after nine years in Switzerland, begins learning German. She falls into various affairs, and it's here that things begin to get messy for Anna. She keeps the affairs to herself, of course, but they adds a level of chaos to a life she already has no control over.

Hausfrau is told solely from Anna's perspective, which is often frustrating and myopic. She's entirely consumed by her own unhappiness, and is unable to care about the feelings of those around her. Essbaum manages to pull this off; Anna is not a sympathetic character but she is understandable and her actions, or lack of action, make sense. And Essbaum's descriptions of being a foreigner in a strange land are written with the eye for detail of someone who has been in that position.

The story jumps around in time, but this works well. What is less effective are the scenes between Anna and her therapist. Sometimes the writing in these snippets is extraordinary, but too often the questions Anna asks are so trite as to be silly. Anna's no deep thinker and is committed to living an unexamined life, which is an integral part of her character, but it does make these encounters the dullest moments of the book. There's a watching-a-train-wreck-happen feel to this book, as from the inside of her head, the reader sees Anna fail to take action or fail to express herself over and over again. show less

Anna, an American expat, lives in cold and careful Switzerland, where she leads a life void of happiness. Anna is difficult, selfish and largely unsympathetic. She is passive and keeps the world at arm's length, not allowing people in or allowing herself to connect with her friends, family or adopted country in any meaningful way. The structure of the book mirrors Anna's distance, allowing the reader only gasps of past incidents at a time. In parallel, we see snippets of Anna's current life with her family and friends, and her inner thoughts via interactions with a psychoanalyst. Yet, for all of Anna's coldness and unlikeability, her story is compelling. Throughout the book, Anna poses questions: what is the difference between an show more obsession and a compulsion? A delusion and a hallucination? Love and lust? The self and the soul? These big questions are at the heart of the book. Terrific prose, clever uses of language, and sentences you want to tuck in your pocket to pull out again later, help make this a book you can't put down. show less

With depth of emotion that is truly astounding, Jill Essbaum tells the story of Anna Benz- an American expatriate who has married a Swiss banker. Despite that she has been living in Switzerland for 9 years, speaks German moderately well, has three children and an actively involved mother-in-law, Anna feels like an outsider… alone and isolated. "Hausfrau" is one of the saddest novels I’ve ever read.

It is clear from the onset that Anna has serious problems. She is seeing a psychiatrist and you- the reader- share portions of Anna’s interaction with the therapist. She has a broken spirit. No religion. No morals. And no grounded roots. Initially, the author’s clever technique of including Anna’s thoughts during the therapy sessions show more seemed like a ruse to inspire sympathy for Anna. But the last thing Anna would have wanted was sympathy. Her visits to the therapist were nothing more than a challenging mental exercise to conceal her true and deepest thoughts. After all, the only reason she was even going to Dr. Messerli was because her husband Bruno insisted, “I’ve had enough of your f...ing misery, Anna. Go fix it.”

Anna is not exactly a likable character. Her deep rooted but detached anti-social behavior is repellent and her reckless selfish actions evoke disdain and horror. She uses casual indiscreet sexual affairs with random strangers to numb her mental anguish, Therefore, be warned of some very graphic sex scenes. And seemingly set on accomplishing self destruction at any any cost, be prepared to witness the unpleasant consequences.

Jill Essbaum has won numerous awards for her poetry and this talent comes through with exquisite clarity in the telling of Anna’s story. A modern literary achievement of high order, expect Hausfrau to be showered with praise and recognition.

In case you are curious… yes- as the story progressed- I did develop very deep sympathy for Anna. My heart ached enough to bring me to tears at the end of the story. As she quoted herself, saying at a tender point during this tragic novel, no-one should have to feel this much pain. Ever. show less

Gotta feed the hole. That’s a line from Romeo is Bleeding, a 1993 film starring Gary Oldman and although the holes are different, they both need to be fed. I’m going to get all spoiler-y on you in a bit, so if you haven’t read the book and want to, stick with this paragraph. If you have hang-ups about sex, morality and the “sanctity” of motherhood, don’t read it. Seriously. The writer uses the words cock and fuck frequently and in their most literal sense and Anna is not a paragon of virtue. She is a woman in pain; a woman without a compass. Another review says that Anna wasted the lovely life she had. Did that person read the same book? Anna certainly didn’t think her life was lovely. She thought she ought to, but show more didn’t and she knew the difference. Knowing didn’t make her appreciate it or try to improve it to make it more satisfactory to her. I don’t think any life would have been no matter what she did, or rather, allowed to have happen to her. The hole was yawning and empty and demanding to be filled (and if you think that’s just metaphorical, it’s not). The sex is graphic, vigorous and yeah, Anna comes, but there’s no joy in it. It’s a reflex like swallowing and she craves it because of the power it bestows - she flexes her desicated will. There are almost no other actions or decisions left to her. She marvels that passive and passion begin with the same four letters.

Spoilers -

Anna is a person worthy of sympathy despite how her actions turn off the reader. She is truly rudderless. Nothing affects her and she knows it. I found her boring actually and I think that’s how she views herself as well. She wonders why, but not too much. She brings fabricated dreams to her therapist who doesn’t suspect they’re fake and analyzes those for her and our amusement. She tries to improve her German, not for herself, to facilitate her interaction with the world, but to placate her husband, Bruno. It’s here she meets Archie and after one brief encounter in class they start an affair that is only about sex. Anna is adamant that is all it will be and after we learn about her previous affair with Stephen we understand why she won’t conflate it with love or romance again. That affair left her with her third child, daughter Polly Jean, but it’s a hollow consolation after Stephen returns to the States.

It’s the children that anchor her to Bruno securely, but she is not wrapped up in them as other women are. She knows this, but cannot correct it or manufacture the appropriate emotional connection. It’s more of the void; the hole. She leaves the kids with her mother-in-law as often as she can get away with and admits that Charles is her favorite. Bruno believes them all to be his and probably the boys are. Eventually you know he’s going to learn the truth; both about his kids and his wife. Except it doesn’t go how we expect.

Anna is caught, but not by Bruno; by Charles. She swears him to silence with threats and coercion, but we don’t think it’s going to take. Unfortunately it does, but in the worst way possible. When Charles is killed I literally held my breath, put the book down and couldn’t continue right away. The tragedy itself was enough to do it, but thinking about how Anna would take it added depth. Even not being the best mother on earth doesn’t let you out of guilt over being with your lover when your child dies. I doubted she’d survive it and frankly, she was so empty and lacking any vital spark I didn’t think it would be much of a loss if she decided to kill herself. She was so sapped of any kind of volition or will that I didn’t know if she would have it in her. When Bruno threw her out of the house, with no money, no bank account and no ability to drive or fend for herself she was at the mercy of the universe and it would grind her to nothing. The way we’re left with in the end was at least quick. show less

***NO SPOILERS***

No doubt about it, Jill Alexander Essbaum took a risk with Hausfrau. The protagonist is a 37-year-old woman who engages in a series of affairs. As unlikable main characters go, the titular hausfrau (housewife), Anna, is up there. Some initial buzz dubbed Hausfrau something along the lines of Madame Bovary meets Fifty Shades of Grey, but unfortunately, readers looking for a true cross between these will need to keep searching. What’s here is depressing at the same time it’s hyper-sexual, poorly characterized at the same time it’s overburdened with long blocks of moody exposition and direct telling. As for the main character, whether she can be sympathized with is very debatable.

Although Essbaum’s actual writing show more is skillful, sometimes lyrical, and even impressive at times (save for overuse of proper names), her plot is scattered. The narrative is poorly organized, with expository flashbacks interrupting present-day occurrences throughout. I questioned the necessity of these flashbacks and often found them confusing.

Hausfrau takes place in Switzerland, a setting choice that nicely underscores American Anna’s feelings of general disconnectedness, but what’s strange is how the setting fits into the story. Essbaum shoehorned in facts about the country at random points. These factual asides feel a bit like they break the fourth wall, not just disrupting the story’s flow but damming it. One such example, planted between description of Anna’s new German-language class and a therapist session:

Migros is the name of the largest chain of supermarkets in Switzerland and Switzerland’s biggest employer. More people work for Migros than any Swiss bank worldwide. But Migros is bigger than supermarkets alone. There are Migros-owned bookshops, Migros-owned gas stations, Migros-owned electronics outlets, sports stores, furniture dealers, menswear shops, public golf courses, and currency exchanges. Migros also governs a franchise of adult education centers. There isn’t a Swiss city of significant population where at least one Migros Klubschule doesn’t exist. And it’s not just language classes they offer. You can study most anything at the Migros Klubschule: cooking, sewing, knitting, drawing, singing.

Maybe Essbaum’s goal was scene-setting and fully immersing the reader, but she succeeded only in sounding like a travel guide. The flaw isn’t major--the information is oftentimes interesting--but I was annoyed to be pulled away from the main character and her life to receive a school lesson.

It's clear enough that Essbaum was aiming for a powerful character-driven story. Hausfrau is populated by a few core characters, each of whom is connected to Anna, some more significantly than others. Unfortunately, the characterization is cardboard and so it's hard to connect with anyone. The husband is standoffish and undemonstrative. The best friend is one of those over-the-top, annoyingly cheerful types. The mother-in-law is disapproving and judgmental. Another friend is insipid and self-absorbed. Each lover is pretty much just a lover, save for a few superficial defining qualities. Even Anna herself is really little more than a woman unraveled, and this is really where the story is significantly flawed. Hausfrau plunges head first into her anguish. It starts with her already mostly unraveled; it’s not about her unraveling. Essbaum never showed how she reached this point of such desperation. All that’s known is that Anna's marriage is unfulfilling; she and her mother-in-law dislike each other; and she feels lonely as an expatriate in Switzerland. A fleshed-out backstory, a history, specifically of her marriage, was needed to better inform the present occurrences and lend them the gravity they deserve.

Essbaum did try to delve deeply into the psychology of her hausfrau. It's just that she did this by relying too strongly on a psychiatrist character. That may sound intriguing--a psychiatrist to plumb the hidden depths of Anna’s psyche and shed light on her tragic behavior, but it’s just not. Descriptions of these visits--which, like the flashbacks, are sprinkled throughout--consist of chunks of esoteric Jungian-speak. The doctor speaks in broad, theoretical generalities that too often sound like gobbledygook. Frankly, she says a lot without saying very much of anything. Add to that inscrutable entries from Anna’s dream journal, and these parts show only an attempt to add literary heft, not genuine insight into a disturbed psyche.

I have yet to read a book that contains dream sequences that actually enhance the story, and I have yet to read any that aren't incredibly boring. They are simply unnecessary--filler that always feels like it's there only to make the work seem deep and intellectual--and in the case of Hausfrau, these sections more than any other are the most disruptive to the narrative. Not surprisingly, when these sections take more of a back seat in the story’s final third, Hausfrau is more gripping--though that’s not the only reason; here Essbaum captured the hollowness and agony of grief with great intensity. I also noted her inclusion of female friendship. Not enough stories portray relationships between women, and Hausfrau depicts both a functional and dysfunctional female friendship.

My review would be incomplete without mentioning that despite the conservativeness implied by the title, Hausfrau is a very sexually charged story. The sex scenes are excessive, and they’re not fade-to-black. Essbaum's book will never be nominated for a bad-sex-in-fiction award, but the descriptions are gratuitious and crude to the point of cringe-worthy at times. As I feel with any book that has this many overly detailed sex scenes, it feels like the author included them just to include them. It's as if Essbaum thought that these would ensure the book is stamped with an "adult readers only" label in the minds of readers, who will then regard the work as sophisticated and serious.

In sum, Hausfrau is about a woman on the brink who’s on a self-destructive path. It’s short on dialogue and action and long on exposition--and it’s a hopeless story. There’s no mirth, no light to be found in its pages, not even a glimmer. show less

"A lonely woman is a dangerous woman..."

Author Jill Alexander Essenbaum has given readers a complex tale of Anna, an American woman living with her Swiss husband and their children in Switzerland. Anna struggles to fit in to this Swiss life, doesn't speak the language, and has no close friends. It is clear very early in the book that Anna is suffering from a deep depression, which seems to go unnoticed by her husband. While in this depression Anna makes a series of destructive decisions.

This book provides a a good look at one of the ways depression can manifest itself. As I see Anna make one terrible choice after another, part of me wants to slap her, like Cher does to Nicholas Cage in "MoonStruck ("Snap out of it!"), knowing full well show more that she doesn't need a slap, but rather medical treatment along with a hug, friendship, and to feel like someone really cares about her.

Many reviewers have written about what a loathsome character her husband is. I don't actually see him that way. I don't see him as intentionally cruel to Anna, I see him as completely oblivious -- not that this is actually a positive attribute. I'm reminded a zinger from the Dowager Countess in the last season of Downton Abbey, "Men notice nothing."

Finally, this book is being marketed as "Madame Bovary meets Fifty Shades of Gray." I guess they're doing this to try and lure in the Fifty Shades readers (yes, there is sex in Hausfrau). No doubt some segment of the Fifty Shades readers will be disappointed here to find out that Hausfrau: 1) has a plot, 2) has well-developed, multi-dimensional characters, and 3) isn't computer-generated drivel. Rather than "Madame Bovary meets Fifty Shades" think of "Hausfrau" as a modern-day "Anna Karinina" show less

I have been a housewife for almost 18 years now, giving up a job I really enjoyed to stay home with first one, and then eventually three, babies. This is not the life for everyone. Some people would be overwhelmed by boredom and view their lives at home as nothing but drudgery. But some of us, those who find outside interests and keep our physical and intellectual lives alive even through the mundanity of laundry and carpool and dinner on the table every night, can certainly thrive and be happy in this traditional role. Jill Alexander Essbaum's novel, Hausfrau, does not have a happy housewife though. Instead the novel highlights the isolation and stultifying ennui that some people feel when staying at home.

The opening line: "Anna was a show more good wife, mostly," is an ironic one. Yes, Anna Benz is an American ex-pat married to a Swiss banker, living outside Zurich, and mother to three small children. She is, in fact, the housewife of the title. But she only becomes vibrant or shows any spark when she is sneaking off to have trysts with her various lovers. She frequently leaves the children in the care of her suspicious mother-in-law while she heads into the city to take German lessons (after almost a decade in Switzerland, she still can't really speak the language) and to meet with various men. She wanders through her own life apathetic and depressed. She only has two friends, neither of whom she really gives access to her life, leaving her completely isolated and alone. She has no outside interests other than illicit (although oddly perfunctory) sex. And even her affairs are arrived at passively, with the men pursuing and Anna simply acquiescing out of compliance and passivity.

The novel's narration is interesting. There is little chronological flow the story, episodes from the past and present jumbling together with bits of the language lessons Anna takes as well as excerpts from her therapy sessions. But strangely, this works. The pacing, however, doesn't work quite as well. The beginning, establishing Anna's automaton-like character is quite extended, with the consequences of this narcissistic half-life only being revealed in the last sixth of the novel. Even when the tension does ratchet up, there's still an emotional remove to the narration that make it difficult for the reader to connect to Anna, either in disapproving of her constant infidelities or by feeling sympathy for her tragedy or for her clearly overwhelming depression. As a character, Anna is frustrating in her lack of affect. She generally comes off as unlikable and detached even when the reader is told that she is in the depths of an emotional breakdown. Neither her husband nor her lovers come off as complex characters either, instead being merely indifferent or cold. And the suggestion that her friend who also conducts an extramarital affair is happy and charged up while the friend who is a loyal, non-cheating wife is naïve and immature is mildly offensive. The novel is disturbing on many levels, pervaded by an impending sense of doom and discovery, yet remains detached feeling despite some gorgeous turns of phrase. There are obvious parallels here to Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary but this does not carry with it the greater depth of cultural critique and import that those two novels did. Essbaum can write but this was ultimately a disappointment. show less