Book Review: "American Housewife" by Anita Abriel

Sometimes we all need a book we don't have to think too much about but is still worth the read. I call these 'wind-down books'. They aren't 'comfort books' because for me, those are horror novels and then again, they are different to my usual requests. 'Wind-down books' are books like this one entitled American Housewife by Anita Abriel. A protagonist who is likeable and kind, but has a strange past and nice dreams. She's relatable but not too much so and the writing is gorgeous and pleasant.

Our protagonist is Maggie Lane who worked her way around 1950s New York by starting with coffee on CBS to a radio star to getting her own show called The Maggie Lane Baking Show by the Deluxe Baking Company. There's only one problem: Maggie can't bake or cook and now, instead of simply taste desserts on a radio show she will have to cook them live. She has also recently married a man she loves and yet there's a past back there she doesn't want coming out. As she works her way up the fame ladder, she cannot afford anything to come out. Especially after the signing of that morality clause which states that she isn't to have any skeletons in her closet. Of course, Maggie is getting more and more anxious by the day.

From the outset, the author createst a likeable character with a long backstory we get to investigate through memories and flashbacks. We have a woman who is trying to get her own way in an era where that still wasn't much of a possibility unless you were pretty enough to be a Hollywood actress (even then it was a bit contentious). Maggie becomes our 'hook' character whom we expect to do well, but as she is anxious, we become anxious with her.

In Maggie's past is a man named Jake whom she met during the Second World War. She actually asked him out when she was in her late teens, buying him half a turkey sandwich from a Woolworths (I mean, how much more broke-ass 1950s person can you get?). Eventually, the romance blossoms and Jake asks Maggie to marry him. The only problem is he is getting shipped out the very next day - and so he tells her they can get married quickly. Maggie though recalls going back to the jewellers with Jake to return the ring. This isn't because she doesn't love him, but because she loves him so much she doesn't want him thinking too much about her and not about what he's meant to do during the war. She has heard too many horror stories of men being blown up because they were paying too much attention to letters from their women back home.

As we get a closer look into Maggie's past, we start to understand what she cannot tell her husband (Teddy). But, there are also skeletons in his closet that he isn't sharing with her. She understands that he used to work in England during the war as a reporter. He was often sent out to report and something happened in France that changed him forever. As Teddy tells her he has quite smoking, she keeps discovering him with cigarettes, especially at the table when the baking show is discussed for Maggie's future where the boss gives Maggie her contract, remembers Teddy and Teddy's hands begin to shake as he loses the colour in his face.

We also have characters like Dolly and Charles, Alan and Sally, Arabella and many more who serve as important characters to the plot. Nobody feels like they shouldn't be there and the author does a great job at giving them actual interesting roles rather than side bits to progress Maggie's story. We have a part where Dolly goes 'missing' and even her mother doesn't know where she is. We have Teddy lying about spending time at Alan's house to Maggie. There's a whole host of things that happen that are all intriguing. Many reviews I've read about this book have been fairly negative but I can say I definitely enjoyed this book perhaps more than I thought I would.

At its heart its a love story. Not just between Maggie and Teddy, but between Maggie and 1950s New York. It is a story about how Maggie seeks her life in New York after leaving a farm. It's a brilliant investigation of what happens when a woman who moves through radio and television becomes the central figure in her own plot - even though she had never been on television until this particular baking show. I really enjoyed it a lot.