Hausfrau

A Novel

De: Jill Alexander Essbaum

Narrado por: Mozhan Marnò

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, AND SHELF AWARENESS • “In Hausfrau, Anna Karenina goes Fifty Shades with a side of Madame Bovary.”—Time

“A debut novel about Anna, a bored housewife who, like her Tolstoyan namesake, throws herself into a psychosexual journey of self-discovery and tragedy.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“Sexy and insightful, this gorgeously written novel opens a window into one woman’s desperate soul.”—People

Anna was a good wife, mostly. For readers of The Girl on the Train and The Woman Upstairs comes a striking debut novel of marriage, fidelity, sex, and morality, featuring a fascinating heroine who struggles to live a life with meaning.

Anna Benz, an American in her late thirties, lives with her Swiss husband, Bruno—a banker—and their three young children in a postcard-perfect suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. Adrift and increasingly unable to connect with the emotionally unavailable Bruno or even with her own thoughts and feelings, Anna tries to rouse herself with new experiences: German language classes, Jungian analysis, and a series of sexual affairs she enters with an ease that surprises even her.

But Anna can’t easily extract herself from these affairs. When she wants to end them, she finds it’s difficult. Tensions escalate, and her lies start to spin out of control. Having crossed a moral threshold, Anna will discover where a woman goes when there is no going back.

Intimate, intense, and written with the precision of a Swiss Army knife, Jill Alexander Essbaum’s debut novel is an unforgettable story of marriage, fidelity, sex, morality, and most especially self. Navigating the lines between lust and love, guilt and shame, excuses and reasons, Anna Benz is an electrifying heroine whose passions and choices readers will debate with recognition and fury. Her story reveals, with honesty and great beauty, how we create ourselves and how we lose ourselves and the sometimes disastrous choices we make to find ourselves.

Praise for Hausfrau

“Elegant . . . There is much to admire in Essbaum’s intricately constructed, meticulously composed novel, including its virtuosic intercutting of past and present.”—Chicago Tribune

“For a first novelist, Essbaum is extraordinary because she is a poet. Her language is meticulous and resonant and daring.”—NPR’s Weekend Edition

“We’re in literary territory as familiar as Anna’s name, but Essbaum makes it fresh with sharp prose and psychological insight.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“This marvelously quiet book is psychologically complex and deeply intimate. . . . One of the smartest novels in recent memory.”—The Dallas Morning News

“Essbaum’s poignant, shocking debut novel rivets.”—Us Weekly

“A powerful, lyrical novel . . . Hausfrau boasts taut pacing and melodrama, but also a fully realized heroine as love-hateable as Emma Bovary.”—The Huffington Post

“Imagine Tom Perrotta’s American nowheresvilles swapped out for a tidy Zürich suburb, sprinkled liberally with sharp riffs on Swiss-German grammar and European hypocrisy.”—New York

Trying to Learn What Self Is

Anna had no one since her parent's died in a car crash when she had finished college, not even friends. When she met Bruno, who lived in Switzerland, Anna was intrigued with the idea of moving because by moving she may have a better chance of knowing the true Anna. She supposed that she loved Bruno, she had never been in love before. Therefore, for Anna, who didn't know herself, thought this would be the beginning of that search.

Anna was unable to make any friend's, that had not changed. Bruno's mother lived very close, within walking distance, and was with Anna quite often. Bruno's mother did not like Anna nor did Anna care for her MIL. Anna was still unable to make friends.

Anna had finally found herself and happiness. However, when this illicit affair was over Anna, was further back than where she had started from. Now that Anna understood just what she had been missing, she was miserable.

Anna had three children, Victor, Charles and Polly. Victor was like Bruno in looks as well as actions. Charles was carefree and in love with life. Polly was a happy go lucky child, who fit in with everyone and everything. Anna knew now that marriage was not helping her to find her true self because she had found and lost it. My understanding was that she cared for her children but I don't think that she knew if she loved them. Bruno insisted that Anna visit a psychiatrist to help her, as well as everyone else who lived with her, with her moodiness, depression and inability to show love.

Anna was seeing her psychiatrist, who suggested that she try to find an activity where other adults were involved. Who knew, Anna may connect with someone and find a friend.

The book was well written and I knew Anna very well. The other character's were also well developed.The narrator gave life to the character's. I listened to the book in short bursts because, as other reviewers have noted, Anna was depression, in its true form. However, Anna was living a life, that I'm sure statistics would prove that many people, men and women alike, live. Maybe reading this book, we are able to attribute some of Anna's life into our own. Surely, not all people. This book could teach you, if you were interested, all about depression in one of its life forms. Anna exhibits one kind of depression, not all the different forms of depression that exist. There were short periods of happiness in the book but not many. I can't say that I enjoyed the book but I liked the book because of Anna. She wanted what everyone wants, happiness, whatever you yourself consider to be happiness. One person's happiness is not someone else's happiness.

A tragedy seen from 100 yards

Most appreciated by those trained in the field of psychiatry.
The train wreck of a woman unable to trust those most able to help her.

Incredibly depressing

This book was very well written but wow, the storyline is very dark and the main character makes you want to scream. She's portraying a woman that doesn't make smart choices or can carry herself through the world. Not a fan.

Brilliant character study

The Hausfrau is inhabited by characters who are unengaged in their own lives. Illicit sexual encounters counteract boredom and unhappiness and sow the seeds for destruction and possible renewal in this thought provoking novel.

I really enjoy it

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I found this womans worries so exhausting yet so humane. Her confindence is crushed and she really doesn't know what to do with her life. If I were in her shoes I feel I most likely will be as desperate as she is.

What about Mozhan Marno’s performance did you like?

Perfect, as always.