Book Club Book Four

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

This was an interesting book. The story and the characters were so full of sadness hopelessness and isolation. Lonely in personal prisons of their own mistakes and pasts, and not interested in redemption or happiness. And yet the book itself I didn't find sad. The writing was so stylized and beautiful that it kept the reader at a distance from the characters - they were more like a beautiful picture full of sorrow that you might look upon with interest and detachment rather than friends you might suffer and grieve with.

This can serve as either a condemnation or recommendation of the book, I suppose, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, I don't feel like it is generally a good idea to keep the reader at a distance from the characters and story of a book because it doesn't serve to keep them interested and motivated to see it through to the finish. On the other hand, in this instance I think if you truly empathized with the people in this book you would be too depressed to finish the book - these characters have given up on themselves in so many ways.

I have a hard time deciding what I want to say about this book - the writing is so elegant and lovely; the story so dark and somewhat uneventful. I think if the writing hadn't been so enchanting, the characters so damaged that I kept hoping for some happiness for them, I would have been bored to tears and unable to finish. As it was I breezed through with my hope for their hopelessness and the rhythm of the words.


Up Next: Nada. The book club has been canceled due to only 4 people showing up (2 of whom hadn't even read the book). So I guess I'll just try to review anything I read that is worthy of it - which won't be much since I revel in the quick, trashy read. Have any suggestions or books you'd like to see me review - send 'em to practicalpablum at gmail dot com.