Just Jennifer

How to Be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman (St. Martin’s Press, October 2013)

From all appearances, Marta Bjornstad is a perfect wife: her husband Hector, twenty years her senior, takes care of her, her son Kylan has grown into a fine young man and she keeps an impeccably clean house and cares for Hector often referring to an outdated book, How to Be a Good Wife, which was presented to her on her wedding day by her mother-in-law.  Marta has no memory of her life before Hector and knows of their meeting and early days only from what he has told her, that he rescued her from a near drowning and that her parents had been killed in a car accident.  Marta is often on edge and considered depressed, sometimes seeing things or hearing things; Hector makes her take pills to combat these feelings, but Marta’s visions are becoming stronger and lately she is beginning to sense that her visions may not be dreams but vivid memories of her past life.  As Marta tries to regain her sense of normalcy, it seems everyone around her is determined to push her deeper into despair until she has nothing left.

Tense and haunting, it is often hard to discern which of Marta’s realities is the truth or is her visions truly are a result of her being mad.  Clues about the truth are slowly revealed and then just as quickly countered by an alternate story to cast doubt.  Marta’s attempt to please Hector and in turn his mother, seems to Marta at first the least she can do for all Hector has done and provided for her, until she realizes Hector may not be at all what he seems.  As Marta’s story unravels so does Marta; the story is alternately dark and eerie with glimmers of hope until Marta firms herself to do the one thing that she knows will finally set her free.