Set in 1907, leadcharacter Ralph Truitt’s life is as dark as the cold emptiness of a winterevening. Although he is the wealthiest man in town, Truitt has found himself asbarren as the landscape since losing his wife and children. Seeking solace andan end to years of personal torment, Truitt advertises for a mail-order bridein a Chicagonewspaper. What he finds in the mysterious, beautiful woman who arrives isanything but the “reliable wife” that he requested when he placed the ad.Written with the echoes of Wuthering Heightsand hints of Edgar Allan Poe, this debut novel is a classic tale of suspensefulseduction filled with plans of murder, trickery and betrayal.
A Reliable Wife got its inspiration in part from a gothic collection of strange,disturbing vignettes and photographs that appear in the 1973 book Wisconsin Death Trip. The collection isbased on real-life tragedies featuring pictures of deceased children andgrieving parents alongside newspaper accounts of murder, illness andinsanityall of which occurred in a small town in Wisconsin during the 1890s. Goolrick hastaken these strange but true accounts and created a haunting story filled withlove and madness.
Goolrick, author ofthe 2007 memoir The End of the World asWe Know It, attributes his use of frigid Wisconsinscenery throughout the novel to memories of business trips he once took here.Knowing that he wanted to set the novel in a dark landscape, Goolrick focusedon the “fascinating” state of Wisconsin.Goolrick will return to Wisconsin from his native New York for speakingengagements at Boswell Book Co. onSunday, Jan. 24, at 2 p.m. and NextChapter Bookshop on Monday, Jan. 25, at 7 p.m.
