Recipe for a Perfect Wife

3.5

Recipe for a Perfect Wife is two-stories-in-one, a story of Alice Hale living in our current time, as well as a story of Nellie Murdoch living in the 1950s. Both Alice and Nellie are young wives, and both are deeply unhappy. Both Alice and Nellie are married to controlling husbands, and each eventually finds a way to solve that problem.

I enjoyed the dual nature of the stories and how the stories of the past touched the stories of the present day. I enjoyed the visit to 1950s suburbia—yes, doctors often recommended smoking to pregnant mothers as a way to relax, and we all know what happened with the nausea-repressing drug thalidomide.

I didn't enjoy the way the people in the story communicated with each other. It was painful to sit on conversations between husband-and-wife and friend-to-friend and boss-to-employee that were toxic. Almost everyone spent a great amount of time lying to each other, and that, of course, had awful consequences.

If Alice has zero haters, I am dead.

There are many different feminisms in this world. In general, I think the contested ideas make studies of gender and inequity more challenging and interesting. But some forms of feminism just fall flat for me. And it's always the white ladies doing it. My own people are always betraying me. Unfortunately, this book was that.

For example, the inequalities of the 1950s presume a stifling white middle class suburban setting. Never mind the “girls” helping the bored housewives cook and clean and raise kids. As long as the white women they work for are kind to them, we're all good.

Fast forward to the 21st Century narrative, and we're doing “women cannot do wrong or bad things,” feminism. Alice's redemption arc is just, she becomes a sociopath. She took Nellie and Sally's mentorship and squandered them into a bizarre biological ultimatum.

It verges on interesting gender commentary but keeps cutting itself off at the knees Examples of potential:- The validity of all women having an emergency fund, regardless of relationship status or job satisfaction or how stable and idyllic things feel now, so you can leave if your partner or job suddenly become untenable.- How it feels to be with a man far more eager to have a baby than you, when you are the one who has to grow and birth a human and then take on the immense responsibilities of motherhood. More broadly, the context surrounding any decision to have children. Accessibility of healthcare, cultural and religious mores, social support, education and career aspirations, economic and environmental prognoses.- Single older woman next door trying to free her married neighbor from societal expectations and threats to her autonomy = good. Cross-generational feminism = good.- How working in a field like publicity could negatively harm or warp your personal relationships, because professionally you need to be calculating and strategic, looking for the right spin and reaction by laying out certain information a certain way.. It lacks nuance and self-awareness but is not searing or unapologetic. Alice is unlikable but not compelling. Nellie far more so, but her storyline is muddied Why did she flirt with a teenager in front of her husband? Why did she do that as a power move? Ew and also gross.. The plot twists are either painfully predictable or nonsensical, there is no in-between. The most interesting aspect that the house is in some way sentient never materializes into anything. The ending is open-ended, but I'm not pulling for the protagonist.

Why? Because Alice is lying the entire book to everybody. But there's no strategic secrecy like Nellie's lies, Alice is just a duplicitous coward. What's more, she does not treat her partner or friends (friend, actually) or mom or colleagues or even her realtor well. She says lying feels exhausting and she feels guilty about it, but she never comes clean. She'll get caught in one lie and her loved ones are ridiculously compassionate and forgiving and she still keeps the rest hidden away. She sucks.

We're supposed to draw parallels between Nate and Richard, with Alice alluding to a new Nate she doesn't recognize. I'm calling that projection, babe. Nate is pretty long-suffering and supportive. Also it was hilarious when he got really mad but struggled to get out of his messenger bag to throw it on the ground. Now, the decision to take a job offer and list their house and move across the country without talking to her about any of those three things in advance? Absolutely horrifying. But also, it felt so much like a break from his usual character that it was hard for me to buy it. Whereas, I could absolutely buy Alice doing that to Nate, spun as some feminist victory because if Man Force Woman bad, Woman Force Man must be good. In general, Nate sticks his foot in his mouth sometimes, but it's made all the worse by Alice never telling him how she feels or anything going on in her life. This man is out of the house 16 hours a day studying to better support them after she was fired which she did not tell him about and she's at home not writing the book she says she is and smoking which he does not know she does and leaving eggshells all over the kitchen counter after making another failed jelly salad. Then, after not wanting to have a baby the entire book, in a book about how feminine power can exist separate from that (with Miriam, and Sally, and Nellie, and I guess even Bronwin), as soon as Alice finds out she is pregnant she's like This Is Me This Is It I Am Motherhood It's Undeniable.

I have to stop talking about this now or I will never stop yelling.