Marta Bjornstat's life looks perfect. A beautiful home, a handsome older husband, a successful son. Emma Chapman's gripping debut novel shows us how little it takes for this facade of perfection to crumble and expose the huge and disturbing cracks in the Bjornstats' supposedly good marriage.
Marta begins to see a hauntingly frail girl in her home. The girl seems to be beside her, but she can't talk to her, and no one else can see her. Somehow we know she isn't exactly a ghost, and nor do we believe Marta's husband Hector, who is angry that she has stopped taking her medication.
As this elegant novel progresses we see the cracks deepen. Hector has been keeping some disturbing secrets from Marta, and she has to struggle to find out the truth about her marriage. The world beyond her home, for so long the centre of her life, draws her away from the supposed safety of domestic comfort and into the challenge of working out her own identity.
Emma Chapman's debut novel is a compelling read. It is slim and economical, the spare narration seeming somehow appropriate for the Scandinavian setting. The lands of super stylish homes and lifestyles also seems very apt for a story about the illusion of a perfect marriage.
Chapman also manages the tension in the novel very well too. Marta's slow realisation of the truth is expertly managed and the central revelation, when it does come, is suitably shocking.
How To Be A Good Wife is a skilfully written domestic thriller: fans of Sophie Hannah, for example, will love it. But it's also a chilling glimpse into a marriage, a meditation on how much of our identity we can sacrifice in the pursuit of a domestic ideal. I gulped it down almost whole and would urge you to do the same.
I must thank Emma Bravo of Pan Macmillan who kindly sent me a review copy of this novel.
So pleased that you enjoyed it too. Stunning novel!
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