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| | Description | He placed a notice in a Chicago paper, an advertisement for "a reliable wife." She responded, saying that she was "a simple, honest woman." She was, of course, anything but honest, and the only simple thing about her was her single-minded determination to marry this man and then kill him, slowly and carefully, leaving her a wealthy widow, able to take care of the one she truly loved.
What Catherine Land did not realize was that the enigmatic and lonely Ralph Truitt had a plan of his own. And what neither anticipated was that they would fall so completely in love.
Filled with unforgettable characters, and shimmering with color and atmosphere, A Reliable Wife is an enthralling tale of love and madness, of longing and murder.
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Robert Goolrick | | Paperback: | 320 pages | | Publisher: | Algonquin Books | | Publication Date: | January 05, 2010 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 1565129776 | | Product Length: | 8.5 inches | | Product Width: | 5.5 inches | | Product Height: | 1.25 inches | | Product Weight: | 0.69 pounds | | Package Length: | 8.2 inches | | Package Width: | 5.5 inches | | Package Height: | 1.0 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 808 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 808 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
406 of 459 found the following review helpful:
 "Such things happened." Mar 25, 2009
By K. M.
"literary devotee"
When wealthy businessman Ralph Truitt stood on the icy railroad platform waiting for the late train to deposit his mail order wife-to-be before him, he was expecting a woman of plain appearance with a missionary history; someone who could presumably make his house into a home and who could withstand the pressures of living in a still untamed country. That was what his ad had asked for: a reliable wife. Ralph Truitt was in for a surprise.
When she disembarked the train, Catherine Land's beautiful face didn't match the picture she had sent Truitt and he told her flatly, " ' Maybe you thought I was a fool. You were wrong.' " But a howling storm stopped Ralph from interrogating her there and then. And as the horses drew Truitt's carriage toward his estate in blinding snow, fate stepped in and won this woman a renewed offer to become Mrs. Truitt -- which was what she wanted.
Well, more precisely, she wanted what she intended would follow shortly: widowhood and the inheritance of Truitt's amassed estate. She had brought what she needed to implement her deadly scheme. Possessed of a scandalous past she would keep secret at all costs, Catherine had so much experience with men she was confident she could murder and yet remain emotionally unencumbered.
Ralph was no saint himself, but he carried an ingrained self-flagellating and resigned spirit. "Some things you escape, he thought. Most things you don't, certainly not the cold. You don't escape the things, mostly bad, that just happen to you." Wounds of love and lust had scarred him terribly two decades ago. Now alone and, for all intents and purposes, heirless at fifty-four, Ralph felt despair. He knew it wasn't unique to himself. He knew "the winters were too long," causing insanity, suicide, starvation, axe murders, and mostly silent desperation and depression. "These things happened."
Author Robert Goolrick's recurring theme of the potentially devastating psychological effects of long, bleak winters underscores the macabre situation in Truitt's mansion during that 1907 Wisconsin winter: The swirling snows outside mimic the Mediciesque intrigue inside the elaborate house. The plot is complex and labyrinthine, but it won't do to give away too much. Suffice to say, insanity -- but also love -- blows through on all sides.
A Reliable Wife seethes with savage passions which the author pens with an operatic flair. The prose is sometimes alarming: "He wanted to slice her open and lie inside the warm blood of her body." However, Goolrick also excels in memorable passages of a recuperative nature -- as a beautiful garden scene poignantly illustrates. Goolrick's suspenseful, sustained dialectic between the primal "heart of darkness" and the humane and cultured heart of charity stokes the plot, keeping the reader glued.
Although this novel is a certified page-turner, it can feel chaotic and contradictory due to a narrative consisting often of characters' uncensored, roiling feelings and streams of consciousness. It is unsettling and "messy" to follow them restlessly shifting from one thought to a contradictory one, baldly laying bare their brutish instincts, then subsiding almost soothingly, like restive waves.
A RELIABLE WIFE is a novel of intensity and raw power. On its own rather masochistic terms, it also offers up love (and forgiveness) of the deepest kind. This novel will appeal widely, but likely most to those who crave a bold but somewhat perverse love story featuring very flawed characters. They, despite their cravenness, reach out to readers and demand notice and even grudging respect and affection. Goolrick's fictional version of 1900's rural Wisconsin folk isn't pretty, but, "Such things happened." See what you think of this tale.
163 of 190 found the following review helpful:
 These books happen... Feb 17, 2010
By a discriminating reader
but I wish they wouldn't. A prosaic, uninspired, embarrassing attempt at literary fiction which falls flat. The writing is overwrought and repetitive, the sentences sound like they come from a second grader ("We've lived the lives we've made. I've lost. You've lost. This memory you have. It was sweet for such a short time. We've behaved badly. To each other. In the world. It's over. We're over. It's got to stop.") - Yikes! The author's favorite word is "languid," which pops up over and over (and over and over). Hey, get a thesaurus.
The plot is thin and boring, the most interesting element in the beginning with the runaway horses episode. Inconsistencies abound. And I just can't care about any of the unlikable one-dimensional characters, whose colors change on every page, sometimes within a paragraph, from absorption-love-desire-regret-bitterness-hate back to bitterness-regret-desire-love-absorption.
Easily, this is in my list of the worst books I have read. As a librarian, I will not be recommending this to my reading public. Don't waste your time - I did, so you don't have to.
195 of 235 found the following review helpful:
A "bodice ripper" soap opera. May 03, 2009
By C. L. Burchard
"eclectic reader"
After hearing the author interviewed on NPR, I was intrigued and immediately bought the book. I read it in two days, but after a few chapters, I was pulled along by nothing more than a desire to find out what would happen. I disliked the story and the writing at almost every stage. Nothing about the book is believable, least of all the characters' over-the-top "raging" passions. Don't waste your time unless you like "bodice ripper" soap operas.
166 of 200 found the following review helpful:
 Unputdownable Apr 03, 2009
By Luanne Ollivier
I stayed up past my usual time last night, as I couldn't put down Robert Goolrick's latest, A Reliable Wife.
I was going to put down my thoughts first thing this morning, but was at a loss to put into words how amazing this book was.
It is set in 1907 rural Wisconsin, most of it during the harsh winter. Crime, mental illness and disease seem to be part of the accepted landscape. Goolrick in his end notes cites Michael Lesy's book Wisconsin Death Trip as having a 'profound influence on the structure and genesis of his novel.' The darkness and madness of the surrounding town is referred to often, adding to the overall tone of the novel.
Ralph Truit is the patriarch of the town that bears his name. He owns everything and nearly everyone works for him. He has money and power, but not the thing he craves the most, that which he has denied himself for twenty years. Female companionship - a wife. He advertises in a newspaper for ' a reliable wife.'
" He had wanted a simple, honest woman. A quiet life. A life in which everything could be saved and nobody went insane."
Catherine Land answers that ad, describing herself as 'a simple, honest woman'. Ralph sends for her and she arrives to become his spouse. However Catherine is not quite what she has represented herself to be.
"She knew a good deal more about what was to happen than he did." " She knew the end of the story."
I don't want to give away any more of the plot. But it is more complicated than it seems at first glance. Two wounded hearts, both longing for what they can't or don't have, bring these two people together, isolated in a small pocket of madness, for better or worse.
The story itself is captivating, but it is the language that mesmerized me. Goolrick's writing is raw and powerful. Ralph's discourse on his wants and desires are simply beautiful. Catherine's disquistion on her life, desires and how she came to be what she is, is brutal in it's honesty.
I don't know what else to say, other than I was caught up in the story from first to last page. Highly recommended!
117 of 141 found the following review helpful:
Predictable, Implausible and Really Bad Apr 28, 2009
By Been there, done that
My goodness. I can't believe the excellent reviews this book has received. I bought it, read it, and returned it for a full refund.
The characters are awkward, the plot is awkward, the writing is awkward, the sex scenes are awkward, even the names of the characters are awkward (Ralph Truitt, Catherine Land, Antonio Moretti as the bastard "son"). The musings of the unsympathetic, boring and unimaginative characters seem to go on forever, and the story is just ridiculous. I kept waiting for the plot twist that never happened.
If you actually care about not knowing what will happen in this predictable, implausible and downright silly book, don't read any further.....
For starters, the characters are unlikeable stereotypes. Even the dead ones, like the mother, the sister, the wife...As for the live ones? (The caretakers? Stereotypes.) Well, you know exactly what Catherine's past is when she's sitting on the train. If her clothes weren't a dead giveaway, her thoughts about the appearance of her train car tell you everything you need to know. Truitt's incessant moping about sex is just as predictable and boring. It's not even pathetically sad. It's just boring. So, the two main characters' respective tragic pasts are not exactly exciting, or even remotely interesting.
As for the plot: Again, when it isn't completely predictable, it's implausible. The writer virtually copies a scene right out of Jane Eyre, so that Catherine can ingratiate herself with Truitt shortly after they meet. The sister dies a Dickensian death. The attempt to make Truitt and Catherine's meeting less of an accident is so contrived as to be absurd. The near and actual deaths - equally predictable and contrived. Why wouldn't the wealthy Truitt hire private investigators to check her out before he sends for her, just as he hired PI's to find his long-lost "son"? Why would he send his new young wife to town to fetch Antonio? Why wouldn't Antonio just go take all Truitt's money and leave, instead of going through the trouble to set Catherine up to poison Truitt? How did they even know Truitt would select her as the mail-order bride to get the whole poisoning scheme in place? Why would Truitt know that she's poisoning him and just shrug it off - it's okay, just don't let me suffer, dear, while you're killing me? And the chase scene at the end, where Antonio ends up on the ice? Gee, I wonder what's going to happen to him? The list of absurdities goes on and on.
I was up all night reading this book, waiting for something interesting to happen, waiting to actually care about somebody - anybody - in the story. What an unfulfilling reading experience this was.
At least I got my money back.
See all 808 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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