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A Reliable Wife (Hardcover)

Edition 1
by Goolrick, Robert
Overall Rating Rating 4.5  |  2 reviews
Today $16.20
Item #: 11462084
    It`s the early years of the 20th-century, and troubled young Midwestern girl Catherine Land has learned to fend for herself using a combination of craftiness, sex appeal, and a dim view on conventional morality. So when she sees an advertisement by a w......more

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It`s the early years of the 20th-century, and troubled young Midwestern girl Catherine Land has learned to fend for herself using a combination of craftiness, sex appeal, and a dim view on conventional morality. So when she sees an advertisement by a wealthy businessman looking for "a reliable wife" she sets off with the intention of marrying him--and then slowly poisoning him with arsenic. However, as their twisted marriage progresses, Catherine and her new husband find their relationship changing in strange and unexpected ways. Robert Goolrick`s dark debut novel takes its devilish premise and then spins it out into a satisfyingly complex emotional pattern.

Author:
Goolrick, Robert
ISBN:
9781565125964
Format:
Hardcover
Pages:
291
Publish Date:
03/31/2009
Publisher:
Algonquin Books
Language:
English

Portions copyright 2005 Muze Inc. All rights reserved.

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Overall Rating: 4.5

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  • Set in 1907 Wisconsin, Goolrick's fiction debut (after a memoir, The End of the World as We Know It) gets off to a slow, stylized start, but eventually generates some real suspense. When Catherine Land, who's survived a traumatic early life by using her wits and sexuality as weapons, happens on a newspaper ad from a well-to-do businessman in need of a "reliable wife," she invents a plan to benefit from his riches and his need. Her new husband, Ralph Truitt, discovers she's deceived him the moment she arrives in his remote hometown. Driven by a complex mix of emotions and simple animal attraction, he marries her anyway. After the wedding, Catherine helps Ralph search for his estranged son and, despite growing misgivings, begins to poison him with small doses of arsenic. Ralph sickens but doesn't die, and their story unfolds in ways neither they nor the reader expect. This darkly nuanced psychological tale builds to a strong and satisfying close. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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