A Reliable Wife
by Robert Goolrick
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Description
Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will show more poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt - a passionate man with his own dark secrets -has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways. With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, Robert Goolrick's intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis. show lessTags
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BookshelfMonstrosity Readers who enjoyed the shivery psychological suspense of A Reliable Wife may also like this novel, set in a small town during a diphtheria epidemic. Both novels are set in late 19th century Wisconsin and focus on characters with dark secrets.
30
susiesharp These two books had the same feel to them
by hairball
Member Reviews
Let me start by saying this book is NOTHING like the synopsis leads you to believe. I was prepared for a suspenseful thriller. It didn't take long to realize this is actually a romance novel.....a dark romance novel....but a romance none the less. I don't read romance....it's my least favorite genre....to say I'm NOT a fan, is putting it lightly.
It's also written in a quite poetic and lyrical prose......another of my least preferred reading material choices.
So, I hated it right??.......surprisingly, no..I didn't.
After realizing this was to be a different read than I anticipated, I forged ahead anyway with my no book left unread mantra....and became rather engrossed in this dark drama.
The characters are over dramatic...and downright show more ridiculous at times...unlikable and unrelatable...the plot is twisted.....the entire story is unrealistic......the sex is often disturbing and toxic.....but, somehow it works beautifully.
Goolrick has me entrigued.......I'm definitely interested in pursuing his other work. show less
It's also written in a quite poetic and lyrical prose......another of my least preferred reading material choices.
So, I hated it right??.......surprisingly, no..I didn't.
After realizing this was to be a different read than I anticipated, I forged ahead anyway with my no book left unread mantra....and became rather engrossed in this dark drama.
The characters are over dramatic...and downright show more ridiculous at times...unlikable and unrelatable...the plot is twisted.....the entire story is unrealistic......the sex is often disturbing and toxic.....but, somehow it works beautifully.
Goolrick has me entrigued.......I'm definitely interested in pursuing his other work. show less
I liked this book, but I didn’t enjoy it. It was beautifully written with multifaceted and three-dimensional characters. The plot had unexpected twists and turns and the characters behaved or reacted in unpredictable ways. I picked up this book because my Books-A-Million calendar recommended it. It was also a bestseller with great reviews. One of my favorite publishers, Algonquin Books, published it. So, why didn’t I enjoy it? First and foremost, the characters were self-centered and unlikeable. Only towards the end did they show any measure of humanity. Secondly, I was taken aback by the graphic sexual descriptions. I’m not a prude, but I was disgusted. I was drawn into the story only to find that the characters were despicable show more and their motivations and desires were disturbing. Their lives were sad and dark. But because I had heard such good things about this book, I stayed with it. Finally, near the end, I found what I think made this book worth reading. Redemption. It was a far cry from a happy ending, but it resonated with me. Do I recommend it? I’m on the fence. It wasn’t to my tastes, but I could see why it was so well-reviewed. It’s kind of like some of those classics that we were forced to digest in high school. It was good literature, but an unpleasant read. show less
Ralph Truitt places an ad for a "reliable wife" in a Chicago paper, hoping to finally have someone around who could ease his loneliness. He expects Catherine Land to be a plain woman. Instead, she turns out to be beautiful, and very much not the person in the picture she sent. He knows she's hiding something, but he doesn't feel like he can send her away when it's so cold out (his home is in an isolated area in Wisconsin). When he injures himself and she helps care for him, he decides that he'll allow her to stay and be his wife, even if she wasn't the woman he expected and likely has ulterior motives.
Catherine does, in fact, have ulterior motives. She has brought a bottle of arsenic with her and, after her marriage to Ralph, intends to show more slowly kill him and inherit everything he has. Except she starts to actually like Ralph, and suddenly it becomes difficult to hold onto her original plan. All she has to do is ask for something and he gives it to her - is it really necessary to kill him?
Ralph has his own plans. He wants Catherine to help him convince his now-adult son to come back home. However, that won't be easy to manage, nor will it necessarily be the best thing for Ralph and his dreams of a family.
This was not for me, at all. Some books leave you with warm and hopeful feelings about humanity. This book does the opposite. There's despair, madness, loneliness, and people being just plain awful to each other. It all feeds on itself and produces more awfulness until there's nothing left. Any feelings of peace or happiness are momentary at best, and rooted in lies.
I probably should have DNFed this book early on, when Ralph annoyed me with his constant obsessive thoughts about sex - the sex everyone besides him must be having. It's amazing the guy was so good at business, considering every stray thought of his seemed to be about sex.
Granted, he had a horrible childhood, with a mother who literally stabbed him with a needle to show him what Hell is like. She also made him think that sex was something only a filthy, awful, and corrupt person would enjoy, so when he started getting interested in girls, he figured he was corrupt and awful too. When he finally fell in love with someone and tried to have a happy life with her, she cheated on him. Everyone else in his awful, remote little town also had miserable lives, so he grew old thinking that "miserable" was the way things would be for him forever. Adding Catherine to his life was supposed to at least help him be less lonely.
I didn't like Ralph, although I occasionally felt sympathy for him. The same went for Catherine. They were two incredibly damaged and emotionally stunted people who, oddly enough, likely would have been perfect for each other if things had gone a bit differently. Unfortunately, like I said, pretty much everyone in this book was some degree of awful, and when they all ended up in the same house together, it was a recipe for disaster.
I finished this book, but I can't say that I'm happy I did. Reading it was like watching something rot. It was effectively done, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less
Catherine does, in fact, have ulterior motives. She has brought a bottle of arsenic with her and, after her marriage to Ralph, intends to show more slowly kill him and inherit everything he has. Except she starts to actually like Ralph, and suddenly it becomes difficult to hold onto her original plan. All she has to do is ask for something and he gives it to her - is it really necessary to kill him?
Ralph has his own plans. He wants Catherine to help him convince his now-adult son to come back home. However, that won't be easy to manage, nor will it necessarily be the best thing for Ralph and his dreams of a family.
This was not for me, at all. Some books leave you with warm and hopeful feelings about humanity. This book does the opposite. There's despair, madness, loneliness, and people being just plain awful to each other. It all feeds on itself and produces more awfulness until there's nothing left. Any feelings of peace or happiness are momentary at best, and rooted in lies.
I probably should have DNFed this book early on, when Ralph annoyed me with his constant obsessive thoughts about sex - the sex everyone besides him must be having. It's amazing the guy was so good at business, considering every stray thought of his seemed to be about sex.
Granted, he had a horrible childhood, with a mother who literally stabbed him with a needle to show him what Hell is like. She also made him think that sex was something only a filthy, awful, and corrupt person would enjoy, so when he started getting interested in girls, he figured he was corrupt and awful too. When he finally fell in love with someone and tried to have a happy life with her, she cheated on him. Everyone else in his awful, remote little town also had miserable lives, so he grew old thinking that "miserable" was the way things would be for him forever. Adding Catherine to his life was supposed to at least help him be less lonely.
I didn't like Ralph, although I occasionally felt sympathy for him. The same went for Catherine. They were two incredibly damaged and emotionally stunted people who, oddly enough, likely would have been perfect for each other if things had gone a bit differently. Unfortunately, like I said, pretty much everyone in this book was some degree of awful, and when they all ended up in the same house together, it was a recipe for disaster.
I finished this book, but I can't say that I'm happy I did. Reading it was like watching something rot. It was effectively done, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less
In 1907, Wisconsin businessman Ralph Truitt's loneliness finally overcomes him and he submits a newspaper ad looking for "a reliable wife." From Chicago, 30-something Catherine Land, calling herself a plain, simple woman, responds. But Catherine's looks are anything but plain, and secrets about her past allude to her being anything but simple.
This book was the selection for my book club about six months ago, but I didn't have the time to read it then. However, it seemed interesting so I finally picked up the audio book version to give it a try.
The story is told from both Ralph Truitt and Catherine Land's perspectives and occasionally from the perspective of Tony Moretti, a character we meet later on. I can't really like Ralph's show more character because his actions portray him as a brusque, uncaring, misogynistic jerk, and being privy to his thoughts doesn't help. He obsessively thinks about two things - sex and what other people think about him. (Anyone who knows me knows that I can't stand people who spend all their lives worrying about what other people think about them. Get over yourself. Besides, you'll never make everyone happy.) This latter point is perfectly illustrated when Ralph first meets Catherine at the train station during a blizzard and finds she is not what he expected: He couldn't turn her away, couldn't leave her in a blizzard. He couldn't be seen leaving her. There would be talk. He would appear to be unkind. He isn't in the least bit concerned about abandoning a woman who has just traveled by train from Chicago into a snowy Wisconsin small town without any means of returning home because it would be unkind, only because it would appear to to be unkind. What a *noble hero* we have here.
Catherine's not much better as a relatable character because for all her plans and scheming, she still allows herself to be pushed around and abused by just about everyone in her life. And don't even get me started on Tony Moretti, who is obsessed with vengeance and living a life of luxury and dissipation. I suppose it's a testament to the author's powers that he can write such powerful characters that their actions or thoughts made me have outbursts of disgust at times, but it does not make for a pleasant reading experience.
Further adding to the unpleasantness of this book, there is a bleak and dark undercurrent throughout about the futility and utter loneliness of life that was a bit much even for a pessimist like me (or maybe because I'm a pessimist I need a slightly more hopeful outlook about life from others around me, including authors). This is frequently fueled by anecdotes about towns people (most of whom we never see) who go insane in the long Wisconsin winters and commit suicide and/or murder their loved ones. The book is peppered with these stories at random times that do nothing to further the plot, only to add to the sense of despair. In fact at one point the book declares, “it was just a story about despair,” in reference to the main plot. But to have that feeling of despair spill over into the tangential plot as well provided a worldview far too dark for my tastes.
On the plus side, I enjoyed having a back story for the characters unfold, though the unfolding could have take a little longer in my opinion and been done more gracefully. Once these were revealed, however, the book definitely lost its grip on my attention, and I was just waiting for it to end. The audio edition is well read by actor Mark Feuerstein (currently starring on USA's Royal Pains), although occasionally I thought it was a bit hard to distinguish what character was speaking.
Overall, the negatives of this book far outweighed the few positives and I was deeply disappointed in it. show less
This book was the selection for my book club about six months ago, but I didn't have the time to read it then. However, it seemed interesting so I finally picked up the audio book version to give it a try.
The story is told from both Ralph Truitt and Catherine Land's perspectives and occasionally from the perspective of Tony Moretti, a character we meet later on. I can't really like Ralph's show more character because his actions portray him as a brusque, uncaring, misogynistic jerk, and being privy to his thoughts doesn't help. He obsessively thinks about two things - sex and what other people think about him. (Anyone who knows me knows that I can't stand people who spend all their lives worrying about what other people think about them. Get over yourself. Besides, you'll never make everyone happy.) This latter point is perfectly illustrated when Ralph first meets Catherine at the train station during a blizzard and finds she is not what he expected: He couldn't turn her away, couldn't leave her in a blizzard. He couldn't be seen leaving her. There would be talk. He would appear to be unkind. He isn't in the least bit concerned about abandoning a woman who has just traveled by train from Chicago into a snowy Wisconsin small town without any means of returning home because it would be unkind, only because it would appear to to be unkind. What a *noble hero* we have here.
Catherine's not much better as a relatable character because for all her plans and scheming, she still allows herself to be pushed around and abused by just about everyone in her life. And don't even get me started on Tony Moretti, who is obsessed with vengeance and living a life of luxury and dissipation. I suppose it's a testament to the author's powers that he can write such powerful characters that their actions or thoughts made me have outbursts of disgust at times, but it does not make for a pleasant reading experience.
Further adding to the unpleasantness of this book, there is a bleak and dark undercurrent throughout about the futility and utter loneliness of life that was a bit much even for a pessimist like me (or maybe because I'm a pessimist I need a slightly more hopeful outlook about life from others around me, including authors). This is frequently fueled by anecdotes about towns people (most of whom we never see) who go insane in the long Wisconsin winters and commit suicide and/or murder their loved ones. The book is peppered with these stories at random times that do nothing to further the plot, only to add to the sense of despair. In fact at one point the book declares, “it was just a story about despair,” in reference to the main plot. But to have that feeling of despair spill over into the tangential plot as well provided a worldview far too dark for my tastes.
On the plus side, I enjoyed having a back story for the characters unfold, though the unfolding could have take a little longer in my opinion and been done more gracefully. Once these were revealed, however, the book definitely lost its grip on my attention, and I was just waiting for it to end. The audio edition is well read by actor Mark Feuerstein (currently starring on USA's Royal Pains), although occasionally I thought it was a bit hard to distinguish what character was speaking.
Overall, the negatives of this book far outweighed the few positives and I was deeply disappointed in it. show less
I had no idea what to expect from this book. It looks like a romance, sounds like an historical thriller, and is compared to Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, two books I really love. So, I didn't really know what I was going to read.
I loved the writing in this book - it was sparse but the sentences so well constructed and the words so perfectly placed that they conveyed rich imagery. Imagine living in Wisconsin in 1909, with its long lonely winters. Beautiful in its starkness. Yet there was a warmth to this book too.
This book had a lot of sex - I was not expecting that at all. Not really. These characters are all very sexual, but they seemed to be using it to fill a void within themselves. As an escape. The characters were all flawed, show more none of them with a perfectly clean conscience. All have a past that was less than idyllic or ideal. All have a secret agenda.
I loved this book. I was constantly surprised by the plot and the characters. You thought you were getting to know them, but then you find out maybe you didn't. Some surprises were good, some not as good. It was my favorite book I read this week. I very much recommend it.
This is a book about love and sex and how they can get all twisted up. It is about loneliness and despair. It is about revenge and redemption. It is about guilt. It is about hope. show less
I loved the writing in this book - it was sparse but the sentences so well constructed and the words so perfectly placed that they conveyed rich imagery. Imagine living in Wisconsin in 1909, with its long lonely winters. Beautiful in its starkness. Yet there was a warmth to this book too.
This book had a lot of sex - I was not expecting that at all. Not really. These characters are all very sexual, but they seemed to be using it to fill a void within themselves. As an escape. The characters were all flawed, show more none of them with a perfectly clean conscience. All have a past that was less than idyllic or ideal. All have a secret agenda.
I loved this book. I was constantly surprised by the plot and the characters. You thought you were getting to know them, but then you find out maybe you didn't. Some surprises were good, some not as good. It was my favorite book I read this week. I very much recommend it.
This is a book about love and sex and how they can get all twisted up. It is about loneliness and despair. It is about revenge and redemption. It is about guilt. It is about hope. show less
In his study of three extremely complex characters, the author creates a compelling meditation on love, greed, addiction, passion, death, forgiveness, beauty, wealth, madness, and redemption, set in wintry Wisconsin in the early 1900s. The author does not over-describe, instead leaving the reader to fill in the blanks about the characters' past and present lives. Each character has a clear desire, but not everyone in this story can get what he or she wants, and much of the book's suspense is created as the competing plans unfold. The characters undergo tremendous internal changes over the course of several months, changes that are largely (but perhaps not entirely) believable. Still, there are a few aspects of the plot that are a little show more too coincidental to be comfortable, and one main character seems a little too good to be true. An engaging book that will leave you thinking about the meaning of parenthood, the rewards of forgiveness, and the nature of love. show less
I almost quit reading A Reliable Wife after the first fifty pages or so. I thought the transitions between character stories were choppy and unbalanced and the backstory seemed repetitive. The characters weren't likable so I didn't really care what happened to them. I wasn't sure why Robert Goolrick's book was a bestseller at all -- and then I got caught up in the story and pushed through to the end.
Ralph Truitt is a wealthy Wisconsin businessman who is missing only one thing in his life -- a wife. He had one twenty years before but she died and Truitt never remarried. Now he feels the need for the closeness of marriage in his life so he places an ad in a major newspaper -- "Country businessman seeks reliable wife". Among the responses show more is one from Catherine Land which starts "I am a simple honest woman". Along with a homely photograph, Catherine's letters make her seem like the perfect choice for Truitt. He is disappointed then when she arrives and is not, in fact, homely but rather beautiful. He would be even more disappointed if he knew she had a small bottle of arsenic in her bag and plans to kill Truitt for his money.
I definitely think the writing improved as the book progressed which was why I was able to stick with it. The characters became more complex though I'm not sure I could say that they improved. Still, it was enough of a transition to make the book readable again. For me, the book was really redeemed only within the last few pages. I liked Goolrick's method of closure to this complex and dark story and my impression of the entire novel was raised in the final moments of reading.
But what really intrigued me was his one page tribute at the end of his story to a book called Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy. This book inspired Goolrick's story with its portrayal of the bleak and violent Wisconsin winters. This was the part of the novel that brought the sensational plot back down to Earth -- although to no Earth where I would want to live. Still, it is the specificity of the setting that really makes this an American Gothic tale. As you have probably noticed, I have very mixed feelings about this book so I will leave the decision to read it or not fully up to each of you!
http://webereading.com/2010/01/it-was-bitter-cold-air-electric-with.html show less
Ralph Truitt is a wealthy Wisconsin businessman who is missing only one thing in his life -- a wife. He had one twenty years before but she died and Truitt never remarried. Now he feels the need for the closeness of marriage in his life so he places an ad in a major newspaper -- "Country businessman seeks reliable wife". Among the responses show more is one from Catherine Land which starts "I am a simple honest woman". Along with a homely photograph, Catherine's letters make her seem like the perfect choice for Truitt. He is disappointed then when she arrives and is not, in fact, homely but rather beautiful. He would be even more disappointed if he knew she had a small bottle of arsenic in her bag and plans to kill Truitt for his money.
I definitely think the writing improved as the book progressed which was why I was able to stick with it. The characters became more complex though I'm not sure I could say that they improved. Still, it was enough of a transition to make the book readable again. For me, the book was really redeemed only within the last few pages. I liked Goolrick's method of closure to this complex and dark story and my impression of the entire novel was raised in the final moments of reading.
But what really intrigued me was his one page tribute at the end of his story to a book called Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy. This book inspired Goolrick's story with its portrayal of the bleak and violent Wisconsin winters. This was the part of the novel that brought the sensational plot back down to Earth -- although to no Earth where I would want to live. Still, it is the specificity of the setting that really makes this an American Gothic tale. As you have probably noticed, I have very mixed feelings about this book so I will leave the decision to read it or not fully up to each of you!
http://webereading.com/2010/01/it-was-bitter-cold-air-electric-with.html show less
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ThingScore 83
Don't be fooled by the prissy cover or that ironic title. Robert Goolrick's first novel, "A Reliable Wife," isn't just hot, it's in heat: a gothic tale of such smoldering desire it should be read in a cold shower. This is a bodice ripper of a hundred thousand pearly buttons, ripped off one at a time with agonizing restraint. It works only because Goolrick never cracks a smile, never lets on show more that he thinks all this overwrought sexual frustration is anything but the most serious incantation of longing and despair ever uttered in the dead of night. show less
added by Shortride
Through repetitive and rhythmically hypnotic prose, Goolrick drives home the characters' loneliness, sexual yearnings, self-loathing and fear. He infuses his novel with the inevitable notion that things will end badly for this damaged family. But he lets us discover for ourselves the breadth and magnitude of dysfunction and the deadly conspiracy in which Catherine and Ralph are, ironically, show more both complicit. show less
added by Shortride
Set in 1907 Wisconsin, Goolrick's fiction debut (after a memoir, The End of the World as We Know It) gets off to a slow, stylized start, but eventually generates some real suspense. When Catherine Land, who's survived a traumatic early life by using her wits and sexuality as weapons, happens on a newspaper ad from a well-to-do businessman in need of a "reliable wife," she invents a plan to show more benefit from his riches and his need. Her new husband, Ralph Truitt, discovers she's deceived him the moment she arrives in his remote hometown. Driven by a complex mix of emotions and simple animal attraction, he marries her anyway. After the wedding, Catherine helps Ralph search for his estranged son and, despite growing misgivings, begins to poison him with small doses of arsenic. Ralph sickens but doesn't die, and their story unfolds in ways neither they nor the reader expect. This darkly nuanced psychological tale builds to a strong and satisfying close. ( ) show less
added by ehines
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Author Information
Robert Goolrick was born in Virginia and attended Johns Hopkins University. He worked in the advertising field for many years and wrote his first published novel, A Reliable Wife, in 2009. He also published a memoir entitled, The End of the World as We Know It. Goolrick resides in Virginia with his dog, Preacher. (Bowker Author Biography)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Luotettava vaimo
- Original title
- A Reliable Wife
- Original publication date
- 2009-03-31
- People/Characters
- Catherine Land; Ralph Truitt; Antonio Moretti ; Alice Land; Mrs. Larsen; Mr. Larsen (show all 9); Fanny Truitt; Emilia Truitt; Andy Truitt
- Important places
- Truitt, Wisconsin, USA; St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Epigraph
- "Be not dishearten'd-Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; Those who love each other shall become invincible." Walt Whitman, "Over the Carnage Rose a Prophetic Voice"
- Dedication
- For Jeanne Voltz who was better to me than I was to myself with eternal love and gratitude and for my darling brother and sister B and Lindlay.
- First words
- It was bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet.
- Quotations
- "Nothing says hell has to be fire, thought Ralph Truitt, standing in his sober clothes on the platform of a tiny train station in the frozen middle of frozen nowhere."
The thing is, all memory is fiction. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Such things happen.
- Publisher's editor
- Adams, Chuck
- Blurbers
- Gruen, Sara; Brown, Sandra; Merkin, Daphne
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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