Recipe for a Perfect Wife
Karma Brown, 2019
Penguin Publishing
342 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524744939
Summary
After reluctantly leaving New York City for the suburbs, newlywed Alice struggles with shifting roles at home and achieving domestic bliss in a new fixer-upper.
When she discovers a vintage cookbook in her basement, the allure of cooking up Baked Alaska and Chicken a la King soon leads her into the darker story of the woman who previously owned the house, unfolding in notes tucked into the book.
As Alice discovers striking parallels between this woman’s life and her own, she is finally forced to focus on the trajectory of her own life, questioning the foundation of her marriage and what it means to be a wife fighting for her place in a patriarchal society.
This mesmerizing dual narrative of a modern-day woman and a quintessential 1950s housewife is at once witty and charming and dark and sinister—much like its focus characters. With great care and gravity, this book offers a satisfying look at the lies we tell to feed the secrets we keep. (From the publisher.)