So we pretty much went through the good and bad of this one in our book group last night but, though it reads in some ways like a Gothic novel, I have to say I rather enjoyed it... after getting past all of the SEX.. good lord this writer had some issues to get through with this one.
Wisconsin in the winter of 1907 was not a desirable place to be, yet Catherine Land answered a 'wife wanted' ad placed by the rich Wisconsan Ralph Truitt in a Chicago newspaper. It seemed (though nothing is as it seems) she was done with whoring and drugs and drinking and wanted to take care of the 'middle' of her life and try to find love and/or money, not both and probably just the latter. Ralph has a past of his own, marrying an Italian 'heiress' after spending months in Europe sleeping with (literally) anything that moved (his insatiable sexual appetite is duly noted by the author on almost every page), eventually turning her out of their house when she had an affair with an Italian piano teacher, producing a child, Antonio. So, though he thought his mail bride wife was a virginal spinster looking for companionship, he hit the jackpot with scheming Catherine.. between her past and his they make quite the couple, until her real reasons for coming to his home are revealed.
Poisoning by arsenic, hands being cut off, death by consumption, all of this is included, making this book somewhat of a downer but at the same time keeping this reader interested to the very end. While I didn't really care what happened to these unhappy, loathsome people, I stuck with 'em until, finally, the winter of 1907 would come to a close.
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