A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

 

Published in 2009, A Reliable Wife was a recent  book sale find, a new author to me, fiction and the  story line was appealing.   It is a paperback, 261 npages to the novel, an interview with the author and a reading guide for group questions which I wish I had read as I went through this book.  I actually skimmed fast over parts because the story was not appealing to me.  The writing is good for this first novel, but the tale seemed to drag on longer than needed. 

 Apparently he was inspired to create this novel  back in 1973 after his first reading of "Wisconsin Death Trip" by Michael Lesy which Goolrick describes as brilliant, "a collage of words and photographs paint a haunting cinematic portrayal of a small town in Wisconsin at the diseased end of the 19th century."   So that became the setting for this novel, northern Wisconsin in the dreary winter1907.  The author has several phrases that are repeated at times through the book, one that is prominent and which concludes the story is " Such things happen."  

Page 1

The writing is good, sometimes poetic although as I stated above the story is dragged along and sometimes it seemed the author just wanted to prolong what would happen and could not find another way to build suspense other than unnecessary detail.  Perhaps because it is now the dead of a long cold winter here in Southeastern MN, across the Mississippi from WI I was tired enough of snow and cold temps and that might have contributed to my skimming parts of this book.  We learn about Ralph Truitt, 54 years old, the first and main character, a wealthy tycoon who has inherited vast business empires, a widower, perhaps respected but not liked by the locals.

Pg 4, " Nothing says hell has to be fire, thought Ralph Truitt standing in his sober clothes on the platform of the train station in the frozen middle of frozen nowhere.  Hell could be like this."

Pg 8, "You can live with hopelessness for only so long before you are in fact hopeless."  So he places an ad in a Chicago paper to advertise for a "relievable wife."  The novel opens as he awaits the arrival of the woman at the train station, the train is running late. Pg. 11, "In his pocket was the letter and in the letter was a picture of a plain woman whom he did not know, ordered like a pair of boots from Chicago, .."  

Pages 2-3

Chapter 2 brings the 2nd primary character, Catherine Land.  It was interesting that she was traveling attired in finery, but removes all the nice clothing as she nears the destination  and tosses it out the train window.  She will arrive wearing a very plain homespun material dress and bringing with her similar shabby attire.  Page 5, "It was the middle that gave her pause.  This for all its forward momentum was the middle. The beginnings were sweet, the endings usually bitter, but the middles were only the tightrope you walked between the ono and the other.  No more than that."  She is 34 and was successful in responding to Truitt's ad.  Pg 21, "It was Ralph Truitt's .terse announcement, containing the promise of a beginning, not splendid perhaps, but new, that she had finally answered. 'I am a simple honest woman"  we will learn thru the novel this is not so.  And it was immediately questionable when she disposed of her traveling finery and went wearing shabby clothing to meet this man.  

The tale continues, briefly they meet at the train station and she admits the phot she had sent him was of her cousin, not of herself. 

Back cover

They are traveling to his home by carriage in the bad weather and there is an accident, Ralph is injured but she takes over the reins and they arrive at the mansion(?) where Mr. and Mrs. Larsen, Truitt's reliable overseer and housekeeper, hired help take over.  Ralph has to be cared for over some period of time and Catherine helps Mrs. Larsen because we learn she wants to become his wife and inherit his property and wealth when he dies.  Catherine has a blue vial of poison hidden in her suitcase but does not use it.  Mrs. Larsen is immediately suspicious of Catherine but after she  nurses  Truitt along becomes more accepting.  Finally he regains health and they are married.  She learns that his wife and daughter both died tragically and he was mean to his son, She learns the home where they have been staying is not the magnificent structure he'd built for his former wife, but moved out when she died, retreating to this smaller place.  He willingly buys her with anything she asks  Catherine still has not used the poison and Truitt tells her he wants to send her to St. Louis to retrieve his long errant estranged son, Andy.   He wants to bring him back to WI  to inherit the property and wealth. 

 This should have been a clue to me that something was not right, why would she agree so willingly if she had intended to kill Truitt by poison and inherit it herself.  But she goes to St. Louis where the private detectives  whom Truit has hired, identify the son now known as Tony Moretti, a piano player in a saloon as the estranged son.  They arrange a meeting where Tony denies any such relationship and avows that his parents are  from  and in Philadelphia, that he knows neither Truitt nor WI.

Catherine spends what seems as unreasonable long time in St Louis and corresponds with Truitt and finally says she thinks she can convince this Tony if she meets with him on her own, without the detectives along or observing.  This might have been another clue, but I was not following the reader questions and was becoming bored with the details of her activities in St Louise, reading at the library, etc.  Her meeting with /Tony alone reveals that she has known him before, and they begin or rather resume a torrid affair.  It is all familiar and her clothing is in his apartment.  She remains in St. Louis for some time cavorting and conspiring with Tony.  She searches again for her long lost sister, Alice but finally finds her in a beyond desolate circumstance.  Page 179, "Her sister couldn't be saved.  And she knew she couldn't kill Ralph Truitt." 

Catherine determines to dump Tony, return to Truitt and his wealth.  However Tony threatens l her and  vows to tell Truitt himself.  The plot has thickened and this has gone on for seems like forever, a great part of the novel. During this time apparently Truitt subsidized her willingly, which seems questionable now looking back. Pg. 180, "Not one word, Catherine.  You haven't earned the right to beg.  There's no freedom for you.  No place to go.  You ruin everything you touch."   She returns to Truitt and resumes her life with him with details of how she tried  but Tony could not be persuaded.  They move into the grand house, the palace and she is lavished with all things she wants and begins to restore the gardens. Truitt becomes mysteriously ill.  Mrs Larsen is still on duty watching. Catherine is. slowly poisoning him but eventually decides she cannot continue.  Page 224, "I can't do it to you.  you're all I've known.  All I will ever know and I can't do it.  I love  you so much it makes me ashamed when you look at me to have you see me.  But, there, take my hand.  It stops now."  .But Truitt says he wanted to die.  And then she promises that she will bring Tony, aka Andy aka Antonio home to him.  She telegrams Antonio to come at once.  Antonio does return but with continuing evil intentions.  Catherine is restoring Truitt to health and has discarded the poison.  Antonio is squandering money on women, drink, horses, etc.  Catherine is pregnant. 

Antonio attacks Catherine in the conservatory but she fights back and stabs him with her scissors. Truitt  arrives and beats him, defending Catherine, .then follows him out into the snow.  Antonio goes onto the frozen pond,  the ice breaks and he drowns.  Now Truitt is inconsolable..  At some point after burying Antonio Catherine tells Ralp she is pregnant.  He had admitted to knowing about her and her previous relationship with Antonio.  But as the ending,  page  261, " "Well then.  You'd better come in the house.  She took one last look at the garden.  The air had turned suddenly cold an evening cod, without threat.  It was almost dark.  Things wait, she thought.  Not everything dies.  Living takes time.  And she walked toward the golden house and took his outstretched hand in her own..   Such things happen."   

I give this book 3 1/2 ***; perhaps if I'd followed along to the reader's guide discussion questions I might have been more interested.  But I felt it dragged along and yet I did appreciuate some of the writing.    

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