One of Americans’ all-time favorite series about the settlers on the frontier remains the Little House on the Prairie, based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life and remembrances. Although hardships exist both in the Little House books and TV series, the abiding feeling is one of sweetness of this simple life. Without a doubt, this time period is romanticized in our literature, our movies, our imaginations and even our “history” books. The starting premise, then, of Robert Goolrick’s novel, A Reliable Wife, is familiar: in 1907, widower Ralph Truitt, a wealthy businessman in an isolated settlement of Wisconsin, places an ad in a Chicago newspaper, asking for a woman to come be his wife. He offers perhaps not a life of love, but one of comfort and respect. The woman he chooses is Catherine Land, who, in answer to Truitt’s ad, describes herself as “a simple, honest woman.” In further letters, she sends a photo of a plain, serious-looking woman, telling him of her life alongside her missionary father, who has recently died.
Certainly, this premise has been used in other historical novels, since it was a common enough occurrence for the times. Indeed, a series of books by Christian romance author Janette Oke, beginning with Love Comes Softly, were such huge hits that they spawned several movies, and still continue to be solid bestsellers, more than twenty years after their first publication. Following in Oke’s footsteps, entire careers of Christian romance authors have been built on this theme and era, bringing couples together across the prairies and mountains, as rough and beautiful lands are settled and civilized.
Perhaps Goolrick’s shockingly different approach to what has become a rather pedestrian plot is the reason the critics and the independent bookstores alike have focused on this new novel. Goolrick’s style of writing, and the twisted plot he fashions, is anything but ordinary. Described by more than one reviewer as a “Northern Gothic”, A Reliable Wife evokes Faulkner’s disturbing family dramas of the deep South. His style compares to that of Cormac McCarthy’s writing in The Road. Ultimately, Goolrick’s wording in this novel is as stark and flintlike as the harsh Wisconsin landscape he describes. This author holds no punches. In those long winters, in the raw landscape, as a result of the bleak life of endless work, he reminds the reader frequently that people went raving mad. After too many winters where they buried too many children, where they worked their fingers to the bone and still barely survived, they killed themselves, their families, other townspeople. They gave up. Against the constant reminder of this brutal environment, Goolrick brings his main characters into play. This is no sweet Christian romance. This is a chess board, with lonely, desperate people who believe they have little to lose.
Why would a reader choose to stay with a story like this? For much of the book, it is simply the reader’s anxious curiosity which will drive him on to read through uncomfortable erotic scenes; grim descriptions of poverty, insanity, depravity and hopelessness; interactions with characters he isn’t sure he likes. Goolrick’s talent is revealed in the subtle but insistent undertow of curiosity the reader feels, because, ultimately, the reader wants to know: what will happen to Ralph Truitt, at the hands of his “reliable wife”? From the beginning, the reader knows Catherine Land is playing a role. She is neither simple nor honest. She has come with plans of her own – to marry, placate, and eventually kill Truitt, slowly but surely, with poison. Ralph Truitt has plans for his future family, which will use his new wife to draw his estranged son home. The author has other plans for his characters, though, where even amidst such depravity, loss, confusion, and pain, there may be a glimpse of grace, the slightest possibility of hope.
Ultimately, readers will be glad they read A Reliable Wife even if they don’t particularly like it: Goolrick’s writing is accomplished; his technique and plot structure, talented and clever. Though they may want to give up as the pace sags a bit in the middle, the end is incredibly satisfying, making it more than worth any discomfort along the way. A Reliable Wife may be more literary, historical crime novel than moral tale. Nevertheless, the author obviously struggles with deeper issues, and the realization that not everyone can saved, but even the most destitute may be forgiven. Perhaps Goolrick’s books have more in common with those Christian writers than would first appear.
Hobo was in hiding, but now he’s back and immortalized in a lovely butternut wood. He wants you to believe he was out tramping on the prairie, but really he was sleeping the summer away. He hopes you will forgive a writer’s (and a cat’s) depraved ways. Email Hobo your thoughts on sin and sloth, fiction and forgiveness at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com.
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