Reader\'s Digest Canada - 04.2020

RECIPE FOR A PERFECT WIFE

by Karma Brown

($25, VIKING CANADA)

what it’s about: Part Julie & Julia, part

Desperate Housewives, Karma Brown’s

fifth novel tracks two women, two gen-

erations apart, who are trying to main-

tain their independence despite stifling

marriages. Our modern-day heroine

is Alice Hale, a publicist living in New

York whose husband convinces her to

leave for a ramshackle old house in the

’burbs, where he pressures her to start

a family. In alternating chapters, we

meet Nellie Murdoch, a Mad Men–era

housewife who conceals a passionate,

acerbic mind behind her apron and

home cooking. Overwhelmed by the

endless cycle of housework and main-

tenance in her new home, Alice dis-

covers a box filled with Nellie’s old

magazines, as well as a cookbook

annotated with her quirky notes, and

starts digging into her predecessor’s

secret life and abusive marriage.

BY Emily Landau

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reader’s digest

96 april 2020

reader’s digest

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