A Reliable Wife - Robert Goolrick (Audio)

Liars and perverts and murderers, oh my! It has been weeks since I finished this audio, and I still have a slightly foul taste in my mouth. The reviews had run the gamut, from adoration to disgust, and everything in between. It still didn't quite prepare me for the sludge that I would have to wade through to finish this book.

So, in a brief nutshell, without blowing any of the nuggets of surprise, here is the plot. The setting is turn-of-the-century rural Wisconsin. Catherine Land, of questionable background, responds to an ad from a wealthy businessman (Ralph Truit) looking for "a reliable wife" with which to form an arranged marriage. Both parties have ulterior motives; we find this out early. We just aren't sure exactly what they are, and to what lengths each will go to in the fulfillment of their goals. What we DO know is that Catherine is worldly but pretending to be innocent, and Ralph is a sex-obsessed pervert as a result of a religious-fanatic mother. Good times.

Thus begins the peeling of the layers, and the winding path of twists and turns. My heart raced and I became excited...perhaps there is hope! I began to compare the various twists and reveals to Fingersmith and was intrigued. That was short-lived, however. I won't bother you with details, but with the progression of every disc, the characters become even more pathetic, despicable and obnoxious. By the end of the story, I threw up my hands in disgust and declared that they all deserved each other.

St. Louis and Chicago in 1907 is fascinating stuff. Goolrick created a rich, gothic feel to these cities that were both hopeful and bustling, but also nurtured a foul, filthy underbelly of disease, corruption and prostitution. He created the cold, bleak hopelessness of rural Wisconsin in the winter. As a reader, you are transported.

As I stated before, however, the characters didn't win me over. Neither did the prose. There were scenes that reminded me of a cheap, tawdry romance novel, scenes that were laughable, and ones that made me want to just stop reading:

"Every exchange making him feel like an idiot, making him draw his spine up straight and making him fiddle with his hair, and all he wanted to do was to see her naked on the floor. Not brutal, not unkind, enraptured."


Or this:


The woman he wanted to undress, to see naked, was a stranger. Her conversation, her requests, were strange to him. Nobody had asked anything of him for so long. "I'm not....I'm not pure. You should know." He watched her in silence. "I was a child. A friend of my father's, a fellow missionary in Africa. He came to me one night and....I'm not pure. Not without the sin of fornication. My father killed him. You should know." Mercy touched at his heart. He held her hand, just for a moment, for the first time. "That life is past. It was a long time ago. It was not your fault. Don't think about it anymore." She looked so far away. "It doesn't matter to me. Nobody's pure. My daughter, my Francesca was pure, but nobody else."


Aye, Mother Mary, deliver me from this story.

Now about the audio production. Our narrator, Mark Feuerstein, was a bit dry, with not much range between male and female voices, or much inflection. It wasn't necessarily distracting, but not engaging either. I don't think I would seek him out for future books.

As I re-read through my review, it seems like all bad news. Many of my blogger friends didn't agree. They loved it, calling it "perfect" and "page-turning", including Julie @ Booking Mama, Rebecca @ The Book Lady's Blog, Swapna @ S. Krishna's Books, Jen @ Devourer of Books, Jennifer @ The Literate Housewife, and 90% of the book blogging universe. Just call me Mary Contrary.

2.5 out of 5 stars