Three reasons why I bought and read this one: intriguing love/hate reviews, the promise of good plot twists and cheap price on Bookdepository.
In 1907, Ralph Truitt, a lonely man who owns most of a small Wisconsin town, puts an ad in a Chicago paper looking for “a reliable wife”. Catherine Land responds, but she isn’t what she seems or the “simple woman” she claims to be. On her way to meet Ralph for the first time she discards her luscious red dress and puts on another one, much more subdued. On its hem she sows her jewelry and on its pocket she hides a bottle of arsenic.
*cue eerie and dramatic music*
In the end, it wasn’t the plot twists that stuck to my mind, although there were some, predictable as they might have been (I soon realized I could read the first sentences of each chapter and fill in the following clichés).
No, what really made an impression was the writing. A Reliable Wife must surely be a Guinness Record for the highest density of anaphoras (including political speeches, and that, you must agree, is saying something!).
His mother never wrote and he never went home. He played cards. He read the writings of philosophers. He read French poetry aloud to uncomprehending whores. He studies charts that predicted how money grows into wealth, and he studied the tout sheet at racetracks that predicted how bloodlines could turn into a nose around the wire.
Or
She knew. She knew exactly, but she couldn’t stand to hear it. She twisted her wrists from him beautiful hands; she walked across the room.
A good use of repetition can produce a really poetic prose, but push it too far and it all becomes convoluted, distracting and, well, repetitive.
Such an intricate writing doesn’t usually make a book become a #1 New York Times bestseller, but sex has been known to help. Characters in A Reliable Wife are constantly thinking about (when not actually having) sex. Their relationships with each other are always dependent on whether they had/are having/will have sex or not. If you squeezed out all the sex-talk, I think the book wouldn’t reach 50 pages. I’m not a prude and I don’t mind a sex scene or fifth, but it becomes creepy when, as someone over at Goodreads said, “none of it is sexy“, especially if it’s so often associated with insanity, obsession and violence.
All this to say that A Reliable Wife wasn’t my cup of tea, but that I can understand its appeal. For what it’s worth, lately I’ve been giving up a lot of books, but was curious enough to read this one to the very end. Just to see what would happen. Just to know if my guess was right. Just because.
***
Other thoughts: Giraffe Days, Reading Through Life, Literature and a Lens, Rhapsody in Books, The Literate Housewife, You GOTTA Read This (yours?)
The Sleepless Reader 
8 comments
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September 13, 2011 at 4:45 pm
rhapsodyinbooks
I’m usually right there with you on the too-much-sex bandwagon, but I thought it had metaphorical import in this book. But I know when our book club read it, it was really divided down the middle between couldn’t stand it, and loved it!
September 13, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Kailana
I have owned this since it came out and still not read it… One of these days I will!
September 13, 2011 at 6:36 pm
sandynawrot
I have to tell you that usually I am right there with Jill, but this time, not. I loathed this book. No, it wasn’t sexy, it was perverted. Like the difference between listening to, let’s say, Viggo Mortensen whisper all the things he would do to you when he gets you home, versus some dirty old man doing it. I hated the characters, and I really thought they deserved each other. If it hadn’t been experienced on an audio book, I’d have thrown it when I was done.
September 13, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Shannon (Giraffe Days)
I learnt a new word! “Anaphora” – I love finding out the words for things in writing, ’cause even though I did Honours in English and am an English teacher, no one ever taught me grammar and I had to pick up what I know by myself, over the years. Thanks Alex!
I didn’t mind the sex talk, mostly because that seemed to be the theme, or point, of the novel, and also because, without it, it would have been a really dull story!
September 13, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Steph
Ok, so you were right that I didn’t like this book, only I don’t know how I got that information out in the blogging world because I actually only read about 40 pages before I gave up on it and never bothered to write a review as a result. I didn’t even get to all the crazy sex bits! I just found the writing really stultifying and boring, and as a result I found the book unenjoyable to read. Maybe you saw that I abandoned it on GoodReads?
September 13, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Ti
I have purchased this book not once, but twice and it’s still waiting for me to read it. I hate when I purchased books I already have.
September 14, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Audra (Unabridged Chick)
Yours is not the first negative review I’ve seen of this, especially noting all the sex — sounds yawn-worthy — which is too bad as I bought this thinking it would be good!
September 22, 2011 at 12:02 am
Alex
@rhapsodyinbooks: I see what you mean. If you consider sex as the epicenter of the story (not a wrong perpective, right?), it’s amount is not that exaggerated.
@Kailana: looking forward to your thoughts!
@sandynawrot: LOL! Exactly! And the creepiness might was probably enhanced by experiencing it on audiobook – yikes!
@Shannon: In Portugal we were hammered with grammer, so we know all of these therms by heart, and what do you know, it’s actually useful!
@Steph: It was on Goodreads for sure. If you felt that way before getting to the sex parts, I wonder what you’d have thought then!
@Ti: it happens to me as well.. old age? 😛
@Audra: it’s half yawn, half-creepy. Overall, not a pleasant experience…