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Description edit
Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
October 2010 Book Selection
Sarah Plain and Tall (mail order bride) this book is not...
"It was just a story of how the bitter cold gets into your bones and never leaves you alone, of the pain and the bitterness of what happens to you when you're small and have no defenses but still... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Characters edit
- Ralph Truitt: Older, wealthy businessman and widower who advertises for "a reliable wife"
- Catherine Land: A most deceptive woman that schemes to marry a rich man and then slowly poison him so he leaves her everything. Along the way, Catherine gets more than she bargained for in her relationship with Ralph Truitt.
- Mrs Larsen: Ralph's housekeeper, who is suspicious of Catherine
- Antonio Moretti: Ralph's estranged son from his marriage to Emilia.
- Mr. Malloy: Private detective that Ralph hires to track down his son.
- Mr. Fisk: Another private detective that works along with Mr. Malloy.
- Mr. Larsen: Takes care of the horses and the land.
- India: Catherine's Cousin, who Catherine lies to in order to get a photograph taken of her to send to fool Ralph.
- Alice: Catherine's sister.
- Franny: Ralph's daughter from his marriage to Emilia. An early illness of Scarlet Fever left her mentally disabled. Died at a very young age.
- Countess Emilia: A Contessa from Italy and First wife of Ralph; deceased.
- Katherine, Truitt, Moretti: Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt — a passionate man with his own dark secrets —has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.
- Lucy Berridge: Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt — a passionate man with his own dark secrets —has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.
- Andrea Moretti: Add a description of this character.
- Hattie Reno: Catherine's friend
- Miss Carruthers
- Andrew
- Violet Alverson
- Edward
Quotes edit
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“If love drove people mad, what would lack of love do?”
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“It’s simple to prove who you are. It’s hard to prove you’re not somebody else.”
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“Anyone can learn. Anyone can read and learn. The hard thing is to do, to act—to speak French, to go to Africa, or to poison an enemy, to plant a garden.”
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“They hate their lives. They start to hate each other. They lose their minds, wanting things they can’t have...”
Ralph -
“Some things you escape...You don’t escape the things, mostly bad, that just happen to you...”
Ralph -
“You can live with hopelessness for only so long before you are, in fact, hopeless.”
Ralph
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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You can live with hopelessness for only so long before you are, in fact, hopeless.
Highlighted by 233 Kindle customers -
It was just a story of how the bitter cold gets into your bones and never leaves you, of how the memories get into your heart and never leave you alone, of the pain and the bitterness of what happens to you when you’re small and have no defenses but still know evil when it happens, of secrets about evil you have no one to tell, of the life you live in secret, knowing your own pain and the pain of others but helpless to do anything other than the things you do, and the end it all comes to.
Highlighted by 168 Kindle customers -
The beginnings were sweet, the endings usually bitter, but the middles were only the tightrope you walked between the one and the other. No more than that.
Highlighted by 166 Kindle customers -
She had agreed to marry him without realizing that marriage brought a kind a simple pleasure, a pleasure in the continued company of another human being, the act of caring, of carrying with you the thought of someone else.
Highlighted by 163 Kindle customers -
people who see many things and remember only a handful of them and learn from even fewer, people who hurt themselves, who wreck their own lives and then go on to wreck the lives of those around them, who cannot be helped or assuaged by love or kindness or luck or charm, who forget kindness, the feeling and practice of it, and how it can save even the worst, most misshapen life from despair. It was just a story about despair.
Highlighted by 128 Kindle customers -
Men only give you what they give you, Catherine thought, staring out at the endless and uncontrollable snow, when they know they can’t give you what you want.
Highlighted by 125 Kindle customers -
She was not what she appeared to be to Ralph Truitt, but she was not what she appeared to be to Tony Moretti either, and she never stopped to wonder which self was her true self and which one was false.
Highlighted by 124 Kindle customers -
She had been adept at the beginning and the ends of things, and now she saw that whatever pleasures life had to offer lay in the middle. She could find some peace there.
Highlighted by 124 Kindle customers -
But there was no use. There was no point. It was just a story. It was just a story of people, of Ralph and Emilia and Antonio and Catherine and the mothers and the fathers who had died, too soon or late, of people who had hurt one another as much as people can do, who had been selfish and not wise, and had become trapped inside the bitter walls of memories they wished they had never had.
Highlighted by 97 Kindle customers -
“Every thing in the light and air ought to be happy,” the poet had said. “Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough.”
Highlighted by 96 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
First Sentence edit
It was bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet.
Themes & Symbolism edit
Series & Lists edit
This book is in New York Times Bestsellers (Current). (authoritative list)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Robert Goolrick (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 1565129776
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 1565129776
Page Count: 320
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PS3607.O5925 R45 2009
- Dewey: 813.6
Subjects edit
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