A Reliable Wife

Summary: Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt — a passionate man with his own dark secrets —has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.

Every body has issues. The people in this book have a ton of issues. Truitt may or may not have killed his first wife. He loved her and she did not love him back. He never really expected to fall in lust with his new wife, He loves his son and I have no idea why. It is what a man has to do. He is so emotionally bankrupt that he feigns indifference when his new wife tries to kill him. It is his time to die.But he is so emotionally and physically alive. This book is a lot about sex.

Catherin in many ways is a sad pathetic beautiful character. Never really figured out why she answered Ralph's ad other to steal him blind. And as expected or unexpected as she semi falls in love with him. She has a real wedding dress, he reads to her and they have a physical relationship that is beyond what conventional married couples have.

And Ralph sends her away to bring his son back and she not surprisingly falls for him also. This may have been a trap to bring him back as a favor to bring him back.   She did not set out to do this but it happens to the best of us.

It is confusing exactly where her loyalties lie. Antonio is a absolutely pathetic and sad. He would be happy getting laid and drunk by a different woman and different brandy every day. But in the end he has fallen for Catherin. He has so many issues and some of them are a vast reconstruction of his past that have no ties to reality.

Somewhere along the line Catherin gets pregnant and nobody really notices, even the author of this book. its a logical conclusion as each person in this novel is so busy looking for his or her own version of serenity that they never really see what is unfolding around them.

Spring always seems to be right around the corner in this book and never ever seems to come. Everybody is anticipating it and winter persists just like the issues surrounding each character in this book.

The novel’s setting and strong sense of place seem to echo its mood and themes. What role does the wintry Wisconsin landscape play? And the very different, opulent setting of St. Louis?

The winter's constant storms are a back drop of isolation and despair. It is a very simple life with really no where to go. St. Louis is portrayed as the opposite with all the despair in life. It is just as bleak and stark as isolated Wisconsin.

Catherin's sister is a pivotal character in this book and we see her so little of her. She is deemed a lost cause and left to die no differently than Ralph's first life. Both Ralph and Catherin have similar decisions to make in regards to both people in their lives and let them go their own way. To a better life or non life depending how you look at it.

There is never ever somebody in this book that you truly root for. They all seem so hopeless and weighted down with issues from their past. They only time they seem somewhat fully happy is when they are having sex. In the end the spring truly never really comes but a slight seed of life is planted like an Iris blooming through a late spring snow bank.