Review: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Abandoning her worldly life, traveling to a remote Wisconsin town in the dead of winter, trusting her future to a man she had never met – such was Catherine Land’s new beginning. But there was an ending in sight as well, an ending that would redeem the treachery ahead, justify the sacrifice, and allow her to start over yet again. That was her plan.” “For Ralph Truitt, the wealthy businessman who had advertised for “a reliable wife,” this was also to be a new beginning. Years of solitude, denial, and remorse would be erased, and Catherine Land, whoever she might be, would be the vessel of his desires, the keeper of his secrets, the means to recover what was lost. That was his plan.” Set just after the turn of the twentieth century, A Reliable Wife is the story of these two people, each plagued by a heart filled with anger and guilt, each with a destiny in mind. But neither anticipates what develops between them – the pent-up longings that Catherine discovers in this enigmatic man and the depth of her own emotional response; the joy Ralph experiences in giving Catherine the luxuries she has never known, his growing need for her, and a desire that he thought was long buried.
Every once in a while a book comes along. You start to read it and realize that the synopsis doesn’t exactly convey what you think you will find in the pages. You read on feeling a tad bit disappointed until the moment of epiphany when you realize it is more than you could ever have hoped it would be. That your illusions and forethought’s on the book are nothing compared to the actual book itself.
A Reliable Wife is a darkly woven tale of murder, grief, the most horrible things that we as humans do to each other on a daily basis and how that affects our world in small ways. I want to read this book all over again just to feel what Catherine, Ralph, and Antonio must have felt. I want to live in this book.
If you ever choose to read one book that I have reviewed on my blog, then please let it be this one. Goolrick is a modern master. He depicted the time he wrote in perfectly. His characters though flawed in their own right were written with perfection. The side characters had stories so bitter and amazing that even the smallest in this book moves you to feel.
Goolrick is pure genius and you will be overwhelmed with the amount of debauchery these people commit upon each other. Ralph Truitt is an amazing man and I wanted so badly for him to be real so that I could walk up to him, shake his hand and thank him for allowing me to read the most delicate secrets of his life.
If you haven’t read the book do it. If you have please tell me what you think as I am dying to talk about this book!
Other Reviews:
S. Krishna’s Books
My Friend Amy
Devourer of Books
