A Reliable Wife Audiobook By Robert Goolrick cover art

A Reliable Wife

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A Reliable Wife

By: Robert Goolrick
Narrated by: Mark Feuerstein
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Robert Goolrick's riveting debut novel is both foreboding and sensual. When a wealthy man first meets his mail-order bride in 1907, he realizes this statuesque beauty is anything but a "simple missionary's daughter." But he doesn't know of her devious plan to leave Wisconsin as a rich widow. Nor does she know of the furious demons he longs to unleash during the lonely months of snowbound isolation.©2009 Robert Goolrick (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC Historical Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Exciting

Editorial reviews

Stinging needles of snow plunge rural Wisconsin into isolating despair as this erotic psychological thriller unravels in the autumn of 1907. Wealthy businessman Ralph Truitt, remote and severe, awaits his dowdy mail-order bride on a gloomy railroad platform, too restrained even to shiver in public. "I am a simple honest woman," she has written him.

When glossy-haired Catherine Land, his young wife-to-be, slips off the train, she collapses Ralph with her unexpected beauty and stillness. Ralph, in turn, shatters Catherine with his growly security and kindness. Each is deceiving the other. Tony Moretti, Ralph's ruthless estranged son, eventually sinks their schemes. A Reliable Wife is Gothic suspense, so secrets leak, blood spills, arsenic drips, and past wrongs are avenged.

Novelist Robert Goolrick knots chilling plot twists with ruined characters. Brittle Catherine buries her depraved adulthood by cloning the "manners of her fellow travelers exactly", down to cleaning her own hairbrush so maids will remark on her good breeding. She holes up in public libraries and steams through encyclopedias and card catalogs, collecting facts for her reinvention as a virginal missionary's daughter. Ralph punishes his roaring sensuality with ice water and listless dinner parties. He is a joyless grind. Love, meanwhile, bores Tony with its "lack of event...the same steady heartbeat".

Mark Feuerstein narrates A Reliable Wife in hypnotic murmurs to resist competing with Goolrick's lush, poetic language and explicit sexual dialogue. He bundles his velvety reading voice into a steady purr, lulling and tranquilizing against overwrought subtexts of hysteria. Feuerstein is unhurried, though never halting. He chronicles Catherine and Ralph's broken tangle with unadorned inflections and conspiratorial silences. Feuerstein invests his characters with authentic hearts, even if they, themselves, are not in true possession of one. Nita Rao

Critic reviews

"A sublime murder ballad that doesn't turn out at all the way one might expect." ( Kirkus Reviews)
"This darkly nuanced psychological tale builds to a strong and satisfying close." ( Publishers Weekly)
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This book is for lovers of "literary fiction" (things like Ian McEwan though this is a much smaller scale); it's not for those looking for a mystery/thriller. The flawed protagonists drew me in and the end was satisfying.

Strange but lovely

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Excellent read! This book brings home the human condition. Winter - in the far Northern US can be a depressing place - it can also bring people into themselves and help find true meaning to this life we all lead. The choices we make, the consquences of those choices and redemption are all brought to life in the excellent book, with an excellent narrator.

Dynamic

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What did you like best about A Reliable Wife? What did you like least?

I liked the ending becuase it was really the only happy moment in the entire book.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Good ending but too long getting there.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Yes, but he dragged a bit. There were many pauses that weren't necessary.

Do you think A Reliable Wife needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Yes if it told what happened to them and their baby and if her imaginary garden ever came to fruition.

Any additional comments?

It was tough at times to determine who was speaking. There were not enough "he said" or "she said"s. When reading, that may have been more distinguisable by seeing the paragraph indentions. When listening, I got confused by this often.

An intriguing read, but a bit depressing

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it was an interesting story and I enjoyed it but it wasn't the type of book that one just can't stop listening to. I did nitty enjoy the narrator or reader. His voice was off and I didn't think he captured and expressed the characters very well.

decent read but biting really special

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The premise of this book is very interesting (I'd sum it up as "sexual sociopaths in turn of the century Wisconsin"), as is much of the detail the author imagines for the characters, however it's clear that a more capable writer would have delivered a far more compelling story: there are a number of inconsistencies in the story where a character thinks or acts as if they don't know some crucial detail about another character, only to have it revealed later that they knew all along. It happens with enough frequency in the story as to be distracting and ultimately to make conclusion of the book pretty clumsy.

That said, it's a good read, er, listen and is well narrated. For pure escapism you could do worse. Be prepared for a lot of rather explicit and not always savory sex -- the author seems to be downright obsessed.

Intriguing story but only average writing

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intriguing characters. Great development of atmosphere by author. Only complaint is that this book has no really likeable characters, although I did develop some compassion for the heroine(?) at the end.

Great novel

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I thought that someone might mention this coincidence, but I don’t see it. First, I personally enjoyed—with some cringes—the language, mood and style of this story. Goolrick takes us to a winter in 1907 that’s so isolated and remote that we find it totally bizarre; unreal. This kind of isolation really existed or still exists. Look for a copy of "Wisconsin Death Trip". It samples a collection of old glass photo plates found in a very old home. The real descriptions are gone--lost to time. They are simply combined with excerpts from the county newspaper. The clippings are real incidents like the stories in this book. That book was real--because, as Ralph keeps saying, "That’s just the way people are. . ." That book gave me a chill and now, through fiction, I know the rest of the story.

That’s the way people are . . .

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I you are reader who is tired of formula and typical characters then this is the book to listen to. This story is not grand or great but it is beautiful. It is not a happy story but it is a good story with a good ending. None of the characters are pious or even redeemable, they are all good and bad and are more human than most characters are. The story, for me at least, was a story about making and living with, for better or worse, the choices we make and the choice that are made for us. But it just isnt about living with them its also about the excuse we make to continue living with the good and bad choice. The story is haunting, sad, and down right depressing in some places but it is a good story and one worth listening to.

Beautiful

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Fantastic story with completely unexpected twists. This story grabs you and then the story explodes! Loved it!

The Title is deceiving!

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I can't imagiine having enjoyed this book as much if I had read rather than listened to this book. Mark Feuerstein's poetic, sensuous , mesmerizing reading pulled me in, lured me to complete the story, amde me feel the desolation, the isolation, the human need for contact and love in the midst of loneliness. I will carry the message of forgiveness with me long after hearing the last word read.

Mesmerizing

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