Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Penguin Random House, December 2019

Audiobook (10 hours) narrated by Jorjeana Marie and Mozhan Marno

Reasons why I enjoyed this feminist dual-timeline novel with a cunning plot:

- Two fascinating women in their respective timelines: contemporary and 1950s

- For their joint ties to an old cookbook

- For the inclusion of recipes

- For the author's exploration of gender roles in patriarchy, and dishonesty in marital relationships

- For the dark undertones, and spooky happenings that might be either supernatural or have rational explanations (they are left up to the individual reader's interpretation)

        She liked how smoking changed her voice, made it a little huskier and certainly more interesting when she sang. Nellie had a beautiful voice, though sadly the only time she used her gift was at church, or in the bath, or to coax out flower petals. Filters promised to remove throat irritation, as her doctor and the magazine advertisements told her, and Nellie wanted no part of that.

        Picking a piece of errant tobacco off her tongue, Nellie stopped at the "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column in the magazine and scanned the three points of view: the husband's, the wife's and the therapist's. The husband, Gordon, was overwhelmed with his financial responsibilities and irritated that his wife continued to spend money on things like expensive steak for dinner, clearly not aware of his stress. The wife, Doris, felt ignored by her husband and his silent treatment and would cook him this expensive steak to try to make him happy. Nellie shifted in her chair, crossed her legs, and drew deeply on her cigarette, imagining what advice she would offer this couple who had been marinating in marriage for more than a decade. One, she'd tell the wife to quit cooking for a week and see how that helped her husband's stress. Two, she'd suggest to the husband that he might try talking to his wife rather than expect her to read his mind.

        She quickly scanned the therapist's advice, which amounted to Doris should know her expensive dinners were only making things worse for poor, worried Gordon, and therefore for her as well; Gordon should not be expected to have to tell Doris how he's feeling... she should just know. The way any good  wife would.

        Nellie -- who had been Mrs Richard Murdoch for barely a year -- snorted.

Giller chances: MEDIUM - because, after the clever balance beam performance, there's wobble in the landing.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.