Sarah Strohmeyer The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives

The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives

Sarah Strohmeyer

Dutton, Sep 2005, $23.95

ISBN: 0525949097

Housewife Marti shows little concern that her spouse communicates with her through sticky notes, as she has a lover to occupy her time. However, she panics when said lover John Harding returns from Prague with a new wife, reporter Claire Stark. At the bequest of former wife Boots, who needs help with their teen daughter, the newlyweds settle in Hunting Hills, Ohio.

Claire feels like a fish out of water as she sees no reason to run the gauntlet of manicures, Yoga, and therapy as the other wives do. Adding to her displaced feeling, is Boots, undermining her confidence, especially in light of the fact that Claire wants a job with the Cleveland newspaper where her former boyfriend is the executive editor, but John rejects that, because they were ugly towards his family. Meanwhile Marti takes Claire shopping in order to learn more about her rival and her marriage. Other women including John's pint sized mother, terrorize the journalist with their suburban inanity. No one however will befriend an outsider, so friendship is out of the question; gossip and scandal are in.

The key that makes this fine satirical contemporary tale fun to read, is the gravity that the wives place on their shallow existence, as each one believes they are the center of the universe. In this milieu comes the caring journalist who has seen the harshness of life in Bosnia, and now struggles to understand and fit in with the inanity of these bubble brained, not so Desperate Housewives. Sarah Strohmeyer provides a terrific tale, filled with the irony of how absurd that the middle class suburbanites feel about the contributions of our lifestyles to humanity.