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
For someone to know you, to know you completely and utterly, and still love you: isn’t that what we all wish for? To know you have sinned, and yet be saved? To feel despicable, and be redeemed? In this remarkable first novel, there are no characters not crippled by hurt, anger, and memories poisoned by a suffocating brew of profligacy and licentiousness. And yet, some of them find redemption. Some of them don’t.
The three sinners who take the main stage of this story don’t know much about love. They’ve never had it, and don’t know that it comes from tenderness as much as passion; that it comes from giving love with nothing expected in return. Instead, they try to dull their pain and loneliness with drugs, or lust, or even show more self-denial. But the pain persists, and they take it out on those who might have loved them, if they had only known what love was about.
When 34-year-old Catherine Land answered an ad for a reliable wife, and came in the cold and bleak winter of Wisconsin in 1907 to marry 54-year-old Ralph Truitt, she didn’t know what to expect. He expected a plain woman; she had sent someone else’s picture. But she was beautiful, and he knew right away that if nothing else, she was a liar.
Ralph had grown up with a cruel, abusive mother and largely absent father. Catherine had grown up an orphan. Neither was confident of having a heart capable of goodness.
On the way back from the train station on the day Ralph picked up Catherine, they had an accident. Catherine had to nurse Ralph back to life, to care for and nurture another human being, a gift that had been denied her in her brutal existence. And so the change in her began.
Tony Moretti was Ralph’s son by his first marriage, a marriage that had ended in mockery and sorrow. Ralph’s first wife Emilia had cared for neither Ralph nor Tony; in fact, Tony’s real father was Emilia’s piano teacher, who soon grew bored with her and left. When Tony was eight, Emilia left as well. Ralph saw in Tony both his mother’s infidelity and his own humiliation and he hated Tony for it. He later admitted to punishing and beating Tony for little reason. And so Tony also was filled with hurt and rage. He lived a dissolute life in a sexual frenzy because, "There was a moment during the act of love in which he forgot who he was, forgot everything…. In sex, he ceased thinking and became only being, all movement and pleasure and expertise.”
And forgetting was what they all three wanted to do. But of course, it was impossible….even when remembering could prove to be lethal.
Discussion:
This is a creative and mesmerizing story skillfully written in spare but elegant prose that constantly surprises the reader with the roiling fervor of thoughts and actions beneath the plain and proper exterior of the words. In this way, the form of the book is a mirror of the characters themselves. Catherine covers up her true persona with plain dark dresses and no ornamentation. Truitt struggles to hide his rambunctious, tormenting demons beneath a strait-laced life of subsistence that serves as self-flagellation. Moretti carefully constructs a façade of insouciance, unconcerned with anything more weighty than securing that evening’s pleasure. All of their exteriors are painstakingly wrought, and turned into well-designed expression, like the words that describe them.
Vivid contrasts also characterize the story itself, from the sex and opium and dissolution of lives made short and harrowing by pain and poverty to the visions of lush gardens Catherine entertains amid the endless white and bitter cold of the winter. Self-hatred and despair are juxtaposed with the shocking possibility of endless grace. These contrasts, set as they are amid surprising plot developments and twists, stun and awaken the senses of the reader much as the frigid wind chill of the Wisconsin winter must have done to inhabitants stepping out of their homes in that endless cold of 1907.
Evaluation:
There is so much here to affect you: bleakness, madness, suffering, longing, tumultuous desire, boundless grief, decency, humanity, moral hope, and glimmerings of happiness. This is a story that will haunt you long after you finish the book. Highly recommended. show less
The three sinners who take the main stage of this story don’t know much about love. They’ve never had it, and don’t know that it comes from tenderness as much as passion; that it comes from giving love with nothing expected in return. Instead, they try to dull their pain and loneliness with drugs, or lust, or even show more self-denial. But the pain persists, and they take it out on those who might have loved them, if they had only known what love was about.
When 34-year-old Catherine Land answered an ad for a reliable wife, and came in the cold and bleak winter of Wisconsin in 1907 to marry 54-year-old Ralph Truitt, she didn’t know what to expect. He expected a plain woman; she had sent someone else’s picture. But she was beautiful, and he knew right away that if nothing else, she was a liar.
Ralph had grown up with a cruel, abusive mother and largely absent father. Catherine had grown up an orphan. Neither was confident of having a heart capable of goodness.
On the way back from the train station on the day Ralph picked up Catherine, they had an accident. Catherine had to nurse Ralph back to life, to care for and nurture another human being, a gift that had been denied her in her brutal existence. And so the change in her began.
Tony Moretti was Ralph’s son by his first marriage, a marriage that had ended in mockery and sorrow. Ralph’s first wife Emilia had cared for neither Ralph nor Tony; in fact, Tony’s real father was Emilia’s piano teacher, who soon grew bored with her and left. When Tony was eight, Emilia left as well. Ralph saw in Tony both his mother’s infidelity and his own humiliation and he hated Tony for it. He later admitted to punishing and beating Tony for little reason. And so Tony also was filled with hurt and rage. He lived a dissolute life in a sexual frenzy because, "There was a moment during the act of love in which he forgot who he was, forgot everything…. In sex, he ceased thinking and became only being, all movement and pleasure and expertise.”
And forgetting was what they all three wanted to do. But of course, it was impossible….even when remembering could prove to be lethal.
Discussion:
This is a creative and mesmerizing story skillfully written in spare but elegant prose that constantly surprises the reader with the roiling fervor of thoughts and actions beneath the plain and proper exterior of the words. In this way, the form of the book is a mirror of the characters themselves. Catherine covers up her true persona with plain dark dresses and no ornamentation. Truitt struggles to hide his rambunctious, tormenting demons beneath a strait-laced life of subsistence that serves as self-flagellation. Moretti carefully constructs a façade of insouciance, unconcerned with anything more weighty than securing that evening’s pleasure. All of their exteriors are painstakingly wrought, and turned into well-designed expression, like the words that describe them.
Vivid contrasts also characterize the story itself, from the sex and opium and dissolution of lives made short and harrowing by pain and poverty to the visions of lush gardens Catherine entertains amid the endless white and bitter cold of the winter. Self-hatred and despair are juxtaposed with the shocking possibility of endless grace. These contrasts, set as they are amid surprising plot developments and twists, stun and awaken the senses of the reader much as the frigid wind chill of the Wisconsin winter must have done to inhabitants stepping out of their homes in that endless cold of 1907.
Evaluation:
There is so much here to affect you: bleakness, madness, suffering, longing, tumultuous desire, boundless grief, decency, humanity, moral hope, and glimmerings of happiness. This is a story that will haunt you long after you finish the book. Highly recommended. show less
Regular readers of my blog will perhaps have noticed an antiquarian tendency to my reading. I’m drawn to the books of other eras, books with a past and an influence. However, I wish to read widely and so make occasional forays into modern fiction. The results, though uneven (wasting time on Sophie’s World, bailing on Infinite Footnotes, etc), have nevertheless given me reason to keep trying. My latest sampling of the modern scene being Robert Goolrick’s A Reliable Wife, an historical thriller that came out in 2009, made a big splash and polarized readers into those who enjoyed it and those who hated its bleak and depressing guts.
The setting: Turn of the Century. An inhospitable Wisconsin winter and the seedy side of St. Louis.
The show more cast: Ralph Truitt, a wealthy, middle-aged, repressed sex addict; Catherine Land, a whore trying to make good through a little black widowing; and Antonio Moretti, unrepentant wastrel and Truitt’s very estranged son.
The plot: Catherine comes to Truitt as a mail-order bride. She plans to poison him. He plans to use her to lure his son home. That’s just for starters. Goolrick tackles a big can of worms with this novel, always in over-the-top fashion. With a trio of fuck-ups like that at its core, sexual politics boil straight down to the user and the used. There are guilts past and present, vendettas and a religious obsession with sin that lead the characters into private hells – lack of feeling, cold-blooded murder with wealth the dazzling prize and always the underlying death wish. Catherine becomes two men’s pawn and asset in a love triangle without the love, yet “love” always on the tip of everyone’s tongue, a mysterious force they’d all like to catch though knowing it’s too late. "He wanted to be in love, but he knew that love, now, for him, was something that happened to other people." Now that’s a delicious brew. It is definitely played for drama though, despite the gothic thriller themes.
Goolrick labored over the story for some years and much of the plotting is excellent. He does play it coy, blatantly misleading in the text, which I found somewhat annoying, as it kept what twists there are from fitting seamlessly into the narrative as previously told. Otherwise, the main trio are given watertight Freudian excuses for their worst impulses, all three born to privileged circumstances only for Catherine and Moretti to be traumatically severed from it. Meanwhile, Truitt was raised by a religious maniac and got his psyche twisted into a corkscrew he then spent twenty celibate years working to straighten. The sympathy and chances at redemption Goolrick treats his characters to stands in stark contrast to stuff like Therese Raquin but that kindheartedness, combined with his focus on romance-novel levels of beauty and attractiveness (without the proper levels of decay to balance it out) are what kept A Reliable Wife from the heights of gothic glory it could easily have reached otherwise. Far from being too dark, I found it a bit lighter than I was hoping for.
And here’s the problem with the book: it’s doomed to satisfy no one. Catherine, Truitt and Moretti are not just victims. They cause their own misery and foist suffering onto others. Readers looking for a human-interest drama, a romance or just a fun bodice-ripper will (and have) been put off by the unrelentingly dismal shenanigans. Others who aren’t afraid of the dark will be disappointed that the cast never go at it with hammer and tongs, that it continually pulls its punches. So it goes too far and not far enough. Individual scenes stunned me (Catherine’s hunt for and meeting with Alice, the effects of arsenic taking hold of Truitt or Catherine’s hallucination at the end) and the plot certainly compelled but it never came together as I’d hoped. But maybe that’s just Hollywood pigeonholing at work. It doesn’t hinge on twists or revelations but on moral choice. The themes are of the hardship of life and the lessons we learn or don’t learn from it; how no one can save anybody else or set them on a path to better things if they don’t actually want to be saved. It’s grim stuff, rooted in realism. "Her father died of drunkenness, of course. He drank himself to death, but Catherine secretly knew he died of a broken heart. It happens. She knew it and she watched it, and it wasn’t pretty or romantic and sad. It was pathetic and ungainly and hard as horses pulling a wagon through the mud."
As for the writing style, it varies. The dialogue is eternally stiff, to go with the character’s numbed levels of endurance. Sometimes it works, sometimes it seems off-pitch. The narration is deliberately repetitive and dwells on frozen details from first page to last, to similar results. The opulent attractions of Truitt’s abandoned (but still pristine) mansion had my eyes glazing over but elsewhere the same narrow-focus style proved hypnotic, such as Catherine’s research into gardening and the light that it promises if anyone can make it to spring: "She described the splendors that would come with the summer, the roses and the clematis and the calla lilies and the cheerful dark-eyed daisies. She cataloged the Latin names she had learned. She described the rich fragrance that would come in the night air through the open windows. She would paint every leaf, every flower for him in color, and he would lie, eyes closed, and wonder if he would live long enough to see it." Truitt’s stoic melancholy and embrace of martyrdom make him the most sympathetic of the trio and his off-balance mentality dominates the atmosphere of A Reliable Wife, both in his fixation on sex and his equal obsession with every “Wisconsin Death Trip” style suffering and fatality that blows up over each long, soul-scorching winter. There is a lot of sex in this novel but it’s handled extremely well, neatly sidestepping vulgarity, lusts propelled by very strong emotions and desires. Apparently it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and it’s a constant, so some would be better off giving it a miss.
And I am left ambivalent by my own expectations (the marketing team didn’t help me there). This is a drama of despair and potential salvation, not a psychological thriller. That’s Goolrick’s choice but I wish he’d done more with such a smashing premise. Toward the end of the book Moretti meets Truitt and what happens (or rather doesn’t) goes against Moretti’s previously established character. Far from the gloves coming off, much of the finale has all three declawed. The timing of their behavior seems off so that the final act of violence comes across as random rather than perfectly fitting. My biggest problem with A Reliable Wife is that vivid though it is, it never entirely came alive, either in the cast or the historical setting. I read it swiftly but despite having all the right ingredients, I never got lost in it. I’m not sure I can recommend it to others, though I’d like to, based on the themes if not always their treatment.
What I most appreciated were many of the “extraneous” details – the garden, the scarlet bird, the near-erotica level of sex, the nameless Wisconsin residents and their terrible crimes (I will be seeking out Wisconsin Death Trip, which Goolrick used as his main inspiration). There’s nothing’s wrong with a partially successful book and if you like the sound of it despite the negatives, you can take the chance. It’s flawed but strongly flavored.
http://pseudointellectualreviews.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/a-reliable-wife-robert... show less
The setting: Turn of the Century. An inhospitable Wisconsin winter and the seedy side of St. Louis.
The show more cast: Ralph Truitt, a wealthy, middle-aged, repressed sex addict; Catherine Land, a whore trying to make good through a little black widowing; and Antonio Moretti, unrepentant wastrel and Truitt’s very estranged son.
The plot: Catherine comes to Truitt as a mail-order bride. She plans to poison him. He plans to use her to lure his son home. That’s just for starters. Goolrick tackles a big can of worms with this novel, always in over-the-top fashion. With a trio of fuck-ups like that at its core, sexual politics boil straight down to the user and the used. There are guilts past and present, vendettas and a religious obsession with sin that lead the characters into private hells – lack of feeling, cold-blooded murder with wealth the dazzling prize and always the underlying death wish. Catherine becomes two men’s pawn and asset in a love triangle without the love, yet “love” always on the tip of everyone’s tongue, a mysterious force they’d all like to catch though knowing it’s too late. "He wanted to be in love, but he knew that love, now, for him, was something that happened to other people." Now that’s a delicious brew. It is definitely played for drama though, despite the gothic thriller themes.
Goolrick labored over the story for some years and much of the plotting is excellent. He does play it coy, blatantly misleading in the text, which I found somewhat annoying, as it kept what twists there are from fitting seamlessly into the narrative as previously told. Otherwise, the main trio are given watertight Freudian excuses for their worst impulses, all three born to privileged circumstances only for Catherine and Moretti to be traumatically severed from it. Meanwhile, Truitt was raised by a religious maniac and got his psyche twisted into a corkscrew he then spent twenty celibate years working to straighten. The sympathy and chances at redemption Goolrick treats his characters to stands in stark contrast to stuff like Therese Raquin but that kindheartedness, combined with his focus on romance-novel levels of beauty and attractiveness (without the proper levels of decay to balance it out) are what kept A Reliable Wife from the heights of gothic glory it could easily have reached otherwise. Far from being too dark, I found it a bit lighter than I was hoping for.
And here’s the problem with the book: it’s doomed to satisfy no one. Catherine, Truitt and Moretti are not just victims. They cause their own misery and foist suffering onto others. Readers looking for a human-interest drama, a romance or just a fun bodice-ripper will (and have) been put off by the unrelentingly dismal shenanigans. Others who aren’t afraid of the dark will be disappointed that the cast never go at it with hammer and tongs, that it continually pulls its punches. So it goes too far and not far enough. Individual scenes stunned me (Catherine’s hunt for and meeting with Alice, the effects of arsenic taking hold of Truitt or Catherine’s hallucination at the end) and the plot certainly compelled but it never came together as I’d hoped. But maybe that’s just Hollywood pigeonholing at work. It doesn’t hinge on twists or revelations but on moral choice. The themes are of the hardship of life and the lessons we learn or don’t learn from it; how no one can save anybody else or set them on a path to better things if they don’t actually want to be saved. It’s grim stuff, rooted in realism. "Her father died of drunkenness, of course. He drank himself to death, but Catherine secretly knew he died of a broken heart. It happens. She knew it and she watched it, and it wasn’t pretty or romantic and sad. It was pathetic and ungainly and hard as horses pulling a wagon through the mud."
As for the writing style, it varies. The dialogue is eternally stiff, to go with the character’s numbed levels of endurance. Sometimes it works, sometimes it seems off-pitch. The narration is deliberately repetitive and dwells on frozen details from first page to last, to similar results. The opulent attractions of Truitt’s abandoned (but still pristine) mansion had my eyes glazing over but elsewhere the same narrow-focus style proved hypnotic, such as Catherine’s research into gardening and the light that it promises if anyone can make it to spring: "She described the splendors that would come with the summer, the roses and the clematis and the calla lilies and the cheerful dark-eyed daisies. She cataloged the Latin names she had learned. She described the rich fragrance that would come in the night air through the open windows. She would paint every leaf, every flower for him in color, and he would lie, eyes closed, and wonder if he would live long enough to see it." Truitt’s stoic melancholy and embrace of martyrdom make him the most sympathetic of the trio and his off-balance mentality dominates the atmosphere of A Reliable Wife, both in his fixation on sex and his equal obsession with every “Wisconsin Death Trip” style suffering and fatality that blows up over each long, soul-scorching winter. There is a lot of sex in this novel but it’s handled extremely well, neatly sidestepping vulgarity, lusts propelled by very strong emotions and desires. Apparently it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and it’s a constant, so some would be better off giving it a miss.
And I am left ambivalent by my own expectations (the marketing team didn’t help me there). This is a drama of despair and potential salvation, not a psychological thriller. That’s Goolrick’s choice but I wish he’d done more with such a smashing premise. Toward the end of the book Moretti meets Truitt and what happens (or rather doesn’t) goes against Moretti’s previously established character. Far from the gloves coming off, much of the finale has all three declawed. The timing of their behavior seems off so that the final act of violence comes across as random rather than perfectly fitting. My biggest problem with A Reliable Wife is that vivid though it is, it never entirely came alive, either in the cast or the historical setting. I read it swiftly but despite having all the right ingredients, I never got lost in it. I’m not sure I can recommend it to others, though I’d like to, based on the themes if not always their treatment.
What I most appreciated were many of the “extraneous” details – the garden, the scarlet bird, the near-erotica level of sex, the nameless Wisconsin residents and their terrible crimes (I will be seeking out Wisconsin Death Trip, which Goolrick used as his main inspiration). There’s nothing’s wrong with a partially successful book and if you like the sound of it despite the negatives, you can take the chance. It’s flawed but strongly flavored.
http://pseudointellectualreviews.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/a-reliable-wife-robert... show less
I really, really enjoyed this book. The depth of each character was brilliant. I was completely engrossed in their psychology and how they each realized the effect that their choices had on their lives and those around them. The difference between young romantic passionate love and the enduring mature love of long term companionship is so beautifully described and realized. I loved that the redemptive moment was not at all melodramatic, but realistic in a very positive way.
Dark and sensual, A Reliable Wife is the story of two lonely people, both haunted and abused by their personal history. Ralph Truitt is a wealthy businessman who keeps to himself, thinking he hides his personal torments well. But they are etched on his face. Catherine Land is the mail order bride he has sent for with demons of her own and a dark purpose. To say anymore of the plot would, I feel, lessen it's impact; take away from the suspense as it plays out to it's climax.
Robert Goolrick has woven a mesmerizing tale of desperation, murder, suspense, and yes, love. I fear this review will be guilty of many book review cliches, but it is truly worthy of them. His prose is haunting and grabs you right from the first page, willing you to show more keep turning the pages. It truly was unputdownable and only the fact that I had a family to care for, compelled me to do so. While some of the mystery as it was unfolded was expected, Goolrick managed to make sure it occurred in such a way that you never quite felt you had it all figured out.
His characters were as full of depth as his prose. They were deep, three-dimensional, and filled with conflicting emotions. This wasn't limited to the main characters, even the secondary characters and those you encounter for only the briefest of time had their own internal motivations.
I had a hard time reviewing this book, despite how much I enjoyed it. I've had just as hard a time describing it as well. Twice since completing it I've tried and failed to explain it to others. In the end I just handed over my copy and said read it. I feel this is the begining of a distinguished career for Robert Goolrick, and I am eagerly anticipating what he comes up with next. show less
Robert Goolrick has woven a mesmerizing tale of desperation, murder, suspense, and yes, love. I fear this review will be guilty of many book review cliches, but it is truly worthy of them. His prose is haunting and grabs you right from the first page, willing you to show more keep turning the pages. It truly was unputdownable and only the fact that I had a family to care for, compelled me to do so. While some of the mystery as it was unfolded was expected, Goolrick managed to make sure it occurred in such a way that you never quite felt you had it all figured out.
His characters were as full of depth as his prose. They were deep, three-dimensional, and filled with conflicting emotions. This wasn't limited to the main characters, even the secondary characters and those you encounter for only the briefest of time had their own internal motivations.
I had a hard time reviewing this book, despite how much I enjoyed it. I've had just as hard a time describing it as well. Twice since completing it I've tried and failed to explain it to others. In the end I just handed over my copy and said read it. I feel this is the begining of a distinguished career for Robert Goolrick, and I am eagerly anticipating what he comes up with next. 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
Quick Take: An elegantly wrought tale of loneliness, forgiveness and despair. Compelling characters make the devastation not only bearable, but spellbinding.
Having devoured A Reliable Wife in one sitting, Robert Goolrick's lyrical prose has stayed with me all day -- along with many lingering questions. For example, can someone like Catherine Land ever really change? And why are some people, like Tony Moretti, forever pushing away happiness with both hands?
Other reviews have drawn comparisons to Rebecca and Wuthering Heights to highlight the book's dark overtones and brooding romantic themes. I found myself drawing comparisons to Ethan Frome; partly for the wintery setting, and partly for the pervading sense of desperate show more inevitability.
The book falters only once: the passage concerning Alice and the 'angel' seems trite and overt compared to the subtle, revelatory style of the rest of the book. More positively, the redemptive power of books and libraries for the female lead, Catherine, will likely resonate strongly with LT readers. Ultimately, A Reliable Wife is richly layered, deeply moving and highly recommended. show less
Having devoured A Reliable Wife in one sitting, Robert Goolrick's lyrical prose has stayed with me all day -- along with many lingering questions. For example, can someone like Catherine Land ever really change? And why are some people, like Tony Moretti, forever pushing away happiness with both hands?
Other reviews have drawn comparisons to Rebecca and Wuthering Heights to highlight the book's dark overtones and brooding romantic themes. I found myself drawing comparisons to Ethan Frome; partly for the wintery setting, and partly for the pervading sense of desperate show more inevitability.
The book falters only once: the passage concerning Alice and the 'angel' seems trite and overt compared to the subtle, revelatory style of the rest of the book. More positively, the redemptive power of books and libraries for the female lead, Catherine, will likely resonate strongly with LT readers. Ultimately, A Reliable Wife is richly layered, deeply moving and highly recommended. 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
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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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Historical Fiction
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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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Has as a student's study guide
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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