Recipe for a Perfect Wife

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown, 322 pages

It's 1955, and Nellie Murdoch is a young housewife in the suburbs. Her husband, however, is not exactly the easiest to live with. He expects perfection (and a perfect baby) from Nellie, and gets jealous and abusive if his demands are not met. But Nellie has her lovely garden and her mother's old cookbook to keep her company.

Sixty-three years later, former publicist Alice Hale has moved into Nellie's old house with her new husband, who is ready to fill up the large mid-century home with children and home-cooked meals, neither of which Alice is too excited about. Struggling with both her husband's expectations and her newly empty schedule, Alice discovers Nellie's old cookbook in the basement, and starts channeling the 1950s housewife in ways even she's not aware of.

Told in alternating chapters, these two stories illuminate the parallels between the two women's lives, including the pressures put upon them by both their spouses and society. It's a captivating, and fascinating book, and Brown is very sly in her storytelling, particularly in Nellie's tale. I got sucked in and couldn't put it down. Highly recommended.