Hausfrau

It's an uncomfortable feeling to read a good book with a main character you don't like. Hausfrau is one such good book. The first sentence sets the mood for the book: “Anna was a good wife, mostly.” And she is. Anna sees to her children, tidies up the house, prepares meals, cares for her husband. And yet she isn't. Anna is wildly unfaithful. The activities of housewifery are deeply unfulfilling to her. She lies to her husband, her therapist, her lovers, her friend. From page one, the reader knows this is not going to end well.

Yes, it's an uncomfortable read, but it's a satisfying read, too. Anna is genuinely both self-destructive and miserable, and, though she knows she is ultimately doomed, she cannot find a way to move from the path she is on, stuck between living a life that is unhappy for both herself and everyone who cares about her and suicide . There is a certain sort of paradoxical satisfaction in reading a story that reads so true, yet is so tragic.