A Reliable Wife

Author: Robert Goolrick

Age: Adult

As promised, I've been working on reading actual adult books. Unfortunately, this one is the sort of strange and depressing adult book that reminds me why I generally prefer the ones for teens. But just because I didn't like it very much doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't...it may be more a matter of personal taste than anything actually wrong with the book itself.

Ralph Truitt is a very wealthy businessman living alone in a small town in Wisconsin in 1907. He's in his fifties and has kept to himself for several decades, following multiple personal tragedies. But now at last he is ready for a change, so he's placed an ad in a newspaper for "a reliable wife."

Catherine Land is the woman who answers the ad. She, too, has had a miserable life, but she also has big plans to change that--she is going to marry Truitt and then slowly poison him, so that she will be left alone to enjoy his wealth.

Tony Moretti is a prodigal and lascivious young pianist. He is beautiful, poor, and bitter. And he may be Truitt's long-lost son.

These three lives intertwine in a "Desire Under the Elms" fashion. Each has their own agenda. Truitt wants redemption. Tony wants revenge. And Catherine wants love and money, but if she can only have one, she'll settle for money.

Okay, here's what I didn't like about this book. Number one: All the characters, especially Truitt, think about sex ALL THE TIME. Which is okay. I have nothing against sex. But the author doesn't have to tell us SO much about it. After the first five or ten pages of semi-graphic description of Truitt's thoughts, I get the point. I can grasp that Truitt thinks of nothing but sex and flesh and touching naked flesh and oh that lovely naked flesh. I can remember that. The story can thus progress without me needing to be reminded on every single page.

Number two: It is just so dang depressing. When I first started to read it, I hoped that the characters would find some happiness. They seem like people who ought to finally be able to reach each other and move beyond the horribleness of their previous lives. But as the book progressed, I realized that they're all such truly awful, awful people that it's hard to wish them any good or really to relate to them at all.

Number three: Apparently this is a psychological thriller, which is not the same thing as a regular thriller. A psychological thriller is, apparently, a book in which people spend a lot of time thinking and not a ton happens. For a book about three people who want to kill each other, it's not really a page-turner.

A note from the author at the end of the book explains that the inspiration for the story came from a non-fiction book called Wisconsin Death Trip, which I have not read, but a google search reveals that it's a book of photographs and news stories about crime, murder, and death in rural Wisconsin at the turn of the century. So this book seems to be mostly about the madness brought on by lengthy and miserable winters. And I can relate to that and it is an interesting premise.

So. I didn't really like it. It's not awful. It's certainly not badly written. (No wading through the "Um, like, yeah." "Um, like, nuh-uh." that's in some of the teen books.) If you like tales of tragedy and striving for redemption and people who think about sex constantly, then you will probably like it. For me personally, I'm going to look for something happier to read next.


Other books you might like: Desire Under the Elms; Les Miserables; My Antonia; The Devil in the White City; Marie, Dancing (Note: With the exception of Desire Under the Elms, I did really like the other books listed here. So if you read this book and like it, you should definitely read the others. If you read this description and it kind of interests you, except for all the things I didn't like about it, then you should read the others.)