This was our August/September
Cook the Books Club selection, hosted by Debra of
Eliot's Eats. And, yes you read that right.
Recipe for A Perfect Wife by Karma Brown. When I first heard the title I was dumbfounded. What?? But, after all this is the year of strange happenings, 2020, and we are not in a time machine. Well, Karma Brown does take us on a little time switch, moving back and forth from the 50's to present with her main characters and their lives. She takes a look at the parallels between life as a wife in both eras. I especially loved her exhumation of some old recipes, harking back to my own childhood, and my mom's and mother-in-law's cooking. Vintage cuisine I guess you could call it. And, an enjoyable, very worthwhile read. In spite of which, truthfully, I didn't care all that much for the modern character, Alice. A bit on the discontented whiney side. And she lies way too much for no really good reason.
From the Publishers:
"In this captivating dual narrative novel, a modern-day woman finds inspiration in hidden notes left by her home’s previous owner, a quintessential 1950s housewife. As she discovers remarkable parallels between this woman’s life and her own, it causes her to question the foundation of her own relationship with her husband--and what it means to be a wife fighting for her place in a patriarchal society.
