Review: Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum
Published by Random House on March 17, 2015
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Source: the publisher

American Anna Benz lives with her Swiss husband and three children in Zürich.  She has quite the lofty life but, as an American, she feels alone. Her husband works hard and provides a comfortable existence for Anna and their children, but their marriage lacks any sort of emotional connection. To ease her loneliness, she enrolls in German language classes...and a multitude of sordid sexual affairs that she enters with alarming ease. Ending the relationships, however, is quite difficult and soon finds herself losing control of the web of lies she's weaved around her.  Her life becomes of spiral lacking any control and Anna soon learns, through devastating consequences, that she can never go back to the life she once had.

I first heard about this title on Twitter (imagine that) after a number of bookish people were chatting about this stunning up and coming title. Well, of course I had to read it.  I knew the premise but was in no way prepared for how this book moved me.

Anna’s character is a hard one to like. She has sex. A lot of it. With complete strangers.  Yet at the same time, you can’t help but feel sympathy for her and her situation. An American in a foreign country, with only an emotionally distant husband and overbearing mother-in-law as the only adults you socialize with regularly.  While I wouldn’t recommend the method she takes to gain an emotional connection, I could understand her desperation.

I found myself yelling at Anna as I tore through the pages. She’s an intelligent woman…who makes some pretty bad decisions. The author crafts Anna so brilliantly, capturing the two sides of Anna’s existence with expert precision. As I indicated, I knew about the basic premise of this title going in, yet I couldn’t even fathom how deep it would go psychologically.  The emotional emptiness and isolation Anna feels is quite devastating. I can’t even imagine moving to a completely different country without having a circle of friends and family. Yet Anna is thrust into this existence and expected to carry on as the perfect mother and wife. While that’s the facade she’s built up on the surface, it’s certainly not the true existence she leads. Unfortunately, it takes a truly devastating incident to wake her up and reckon with the choices she’s made.

I’m intentionally being quite vague with a large portion of my analysis. It is my opinion that readers should go into a book with as few preconceived notions as possible. If you are one of those people…skip the next paragraph.

I read this book during a business trip. I was on a pretty long flight, buckled into my seat comfortably and prepared to immerse myself in Hausfrau. By the end of the flight, I was a sobbing mess. Never could I have imagined the emotional toll this book would take on me. First, I couldn’t stand Anna’s character. I wanted to yell at her, to shake some sense into her. I think this strong emotional reaction actually made me bond with her, in a way. So when she was dealt the devastating blow, so did I. I sobbed. On a plane. No hiding it. And for days following, I couldn’t bear to pick up another book. I felt as though Anna was a real person, a friend of mine experiencing an unfathomable loss.

(Ok, it’s safe to read now!)
Hausfrau is a title, now that it has been released, that everyone will be talking about. I’m not going to compare it to other titles who have received the same acclaim, for it honestly stands on its own like no other.  I read this book three months ago and I still can’t stop thinking about it. My emotional reaction still lingers and I don’t believe it will fade for some time.

So, knowing what you know now, I do encourage you to pick up this moving, compelling, brilliant (enter all the adjectives here) novel. You won’t soon forget it. And after you do read it, come back and tell me about your experience. This is certainly a book worth talking about!  Highly, highly recommended.

I so adored this title that it was my March recommendation for Readerly (formerly Bloggers Recommend):