Finally....

A Reliable Wife

By Robert Goolrick

Genre: Fiction
Rating: R
Grade: A-

It took me an unforgivably long time to finish this book. For some reason, I had a hard time with it even though I found it easily written. Goolrick has only previously written non-fiction, specifically a memoir about sexual trauma he experienced as a child in the End of the World as We Know It. This was an odd departure from that. Apart from the subject matter, I found the writing completely different, both in tone and candance. Having such an affinity for his previous book, I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed for the first few chapters.

Reading some of the review summaries before I metaphorically cracked the spine, I expected some sort of existential bonice-ripper. I think, in part, it was that. But, I still find myself scratching my head, only knowing that I enjoyed the book though not entirely sure why.

The book begins in 1907 with Ralph Truitt, the richest man in his little Wisconsin town, meeting his new bride, who has responded (rather dishonestly) to an add he had placed in the paper for a simple, honest wife. Instead, he finds Catherine Land, a woman completely unexpected (especially considering the picture she had sent him was of a different women). I'm giving nothing away when I say that Catherine has ulterior motives. She comes with a small vial of arsenic and intends on slowly poisoning her new husband and inheriting his money. On the way back to his place after picking her up at the train station, they hit a rut in the road. Ralph is thrown from the carriage and Catherine is forced to nurse him back to health before they can marry.

Ralph has spent the majority of his adult life miserable after he had cast his first wife from his home after finding her canoodling with the Italian piano teacher. His disabled daughter died long ago in his arms and his son (who is most likely the piano teacher's son) ran off to escape the perpetual beatings. For the last twenty years, Ralph has held the financial well being of an entire community on his shoulders. He has been kind, fair, honest... and completely miserable. He is surrounded by a town full of people that depend on him, but do not know him. He is surrounded by a town full of people that go insane during the long winters and commit heinous crimes. He goes to their trials and their funerals.

He finds a strange sort of happiness with Catherine, both the ease of married companionship and the fulfillment of sexual need. And she finds something similar in him. The ability to rest, to see the middle of things and perhaps contemplate a life with him- even though, drop by drop she is killing him.

The story twists and turns in unexpected ways. I'm rarely surprised, but never saw many of the twists coming. I don't want to give anything unexpected away, because in this case the unfolding of the plot is the essential joy of the book. It is ultimately a story about our ability to forgive almost anything, and finding unique and unimaginable ways to be redeemed.

No character is completely likable, but no one is completely lost either. Though I'm still not sure why, I loved this book.