Robert Goolrick & Garth Stein: Algonquin Book Club Event, 12/8
Mark your calendars for our next Algonquin Book Club event on December 8, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. PST/10:00 p.m. EST! Garth Stein, best-selling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain, will interview Robert Goolrick, author of A Reliable Wife. You’ll be able to tune in to the live webcast, chat with other viewers, and even ask Robert Goolrick questions yourself. Join the conversation on Twitter with #AlgBookClub. Be sure to check out the Algonquin Book Club website for A Reliable Wife excerpt, an essay by Goolrick, and much more!
Praise for A Reliable Wife:
“A thrilling, juicy read . . . The writing is beautiful and the story is captivating. It’s a real page-turner.”—Today Show
“A killer debut novel . . . Suspenseful and erotic . . . [A] chillingly engrossing plot . . . Good to the riveting end.” —USA Today
“A buzz-worthy debut novel.”—Wall Street Journal
“A gothic tale of . . . smoldering desire. . . . The novel is deliciously wicked and tense, presented as a series of sepia tableaux, interrupted by flashes of bright red violence. . . . Once you’ve fallen into the miasma of A Reliable Wife, it’s intoxicating.”—The Washington Post
“Debut novelist Robert Goolrick has managed a minor miracle. In the kind of precise, literary prose that breathes life into his complicated characters, Goolrick, author of an acclaimed memoir, has also managed a rousing historical potboiler, an organic mystery rooted in the real social ills of turn-of-the-century America . . . A detailed exploration of love, despair, and the distance people can travel to reach each other that is as surprising, and as suspenseful, as any beach read.”—Boston Globe
“Suspenseful . . . jam-packed with delicious twists, turns and surprises from beginning to end . . . Not only a fabulous up-to-the last-minute page-turner about love, lust, lies, deception, heartbreak and resiliency but also a nicely written and elegantly descriptive story . . . Each character’s story is captivating and surprising. You won’t put this book down. It’s that delicious, up until the last page.”—Miami Herald
“[A] beautifully written, beautifully dark book. Goolrick is a superb writer who uses repetition to great effect . . . [The plot’s] twists and turns are a pleasure to navigate, the writing so mesmerizing it makes one wonder whether Goolrick practices; anyone who can turn a sentence fragment into poetry so well has to work at it.”—Chicago Sun-Times
About A Reliable Wife:
He placed a notice in a Chicago paper, an advertisement for “a reliable wife.” She responded, saying that she was “a simple, honest woman.” She was, of course, anything but honest, and the only simple thing about her was her single-minded determination to marry this man and then kill him, slowly and carefully, leaving her a wealthy widow, able to take care of the one she truly loved.
What Catherine Land did not realize was that the enigmatic and lonely Ralph Truitt had a plan of his own. And what neither anticipated was that they would fall so completely in love.
Filled with unforgettable characters, and shimmering with color and atmosphere, A Reliable Wife is an enthralling tale of love and madness, of longing and murder.
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Reader Rating: 0 Votes
I’ve been looking forward to reading A Reliable Wife for some time. I’m sure this discussion with be fantastic!
I am so very excited for this event. I absolutely LOVED “A Reliable Wife” – it was an engrossing read, fast-paced and electric! Loved the characters too…really looking forward to December 8th! Thank you Algonquin Books!
I just keep hearing beter and better things about Robert Goolrick’s “A Reliable Wife.” Not surprised, since it’s Algonquin (“never met an Algonquin title I didn’t like”); but I do wish I’d paid attention when it first came out!
Both of these titles are on my TBR list. I’ll be moving them up to the top of the pile, so I’ll be ready for the broadcast!
Both of these titles are on my TBR list. I’ll be moving them up to the top of the pile, so I’ll be ready for the broadcast!