Hausfrau

A Novel

By: Jill Alexander Essbaum

Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò

Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

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 listeners 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 listeners 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.

©2015 Jill Alexander Essbaum (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“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

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.

A well-narrated book which surprised me

I really enjoyed this audio and was stunned to read how many negative reviews the book has gotten on Audible.

First of all the narration is excellent, I have never heard this narrator before but I will look for other readings by her immediately.

Second, the book itself is a fascinating view of a person living in a foreign country. She faces enormous challenges integrating herself into a foreign society, which with I sympathized. Anna does not resolve these issues in time to save herself, but we get to enjoy her intelligent and pointed commentary about the Swiss language and the culture as we watch her struggle. As a person who has lived in another country prior to mastering its language I really found that aspect of the book to be quite engaging and a good reflection of the feelings I knew myself as an outsider sometimes ambivalent about my new 'home'.

Third, the character of Anna is very frustrating, but I saw the book as more of a meditation on Anna Karenina than as a character portrait of a real person. I thought it was fascinating to follow the author through the exploration of how a modern woman could end up in the same situation as Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I don't think I liked the character of Anna in Hausfrau, or some of the other characters but that did not prevent enjoying the book and its examination of their dilemmas.

There were issues that bothered me in the writing, such as the continued obsession with images of fire which didn't seem to lead anywhere, and I thought the ending was a bit prolonged, but nothing I felt while reading this book can relate to the very negative reactions other listeners describe. I enjoyed this audiobook quite a lot and found it very intelligent.

I hope that readers will give the book a chance - I wasn't able to read a book for months because nothing felt right, and once I listened to a sample of Hausfrau I had to buy it right away and read it straight through in only a few days during limited commuting hours. The narrator adds quite a lot to the experience and does wonderful accents and very expressive reading. The prose is also very beautiful and clever. I think the author is very promising and I look forward to reading more of her work.

Four out of five

I really enjoyed this book, especially the sections that talked about language, and the loneliness of living in a foreign country. I think readers who have lived abroad will definitely relate!

I have heard this described as a "modern day Madame Bovary", and I think that's a good way to explain it.

I will say I was a little surprised at how much sex there was in the book, and how explicit it was! This didn't hinder my enjoyment of the book, but it lead to some awkward blushing, since I often listen to books on my headphones while working and commuting. If you have a problem with explicit sex and morally ambiguous characters, this may not be the book for you.

intriguing

Excellent book exploring the human condition. The author's use of words captured my attention from start to finish. While I am totally different than the main character, I could understand her choices because the author made me feel I understood her and could imagine myself as her.

Depressing read

This is a modern version of Flaubert's Madame Bovary with the same depressing view of the fate of a housewife who makes poor life choices. I found it very hard to believe in the American protagonist who was so passive and disenfranchised in her marriage to a Swiss banker that she didn't even have a bank account, driver's license, or job, despite living in the late 20th century. I also disliked all the Jungian psychoanalytical pronouncements of her shrink who seemed to be more interested in dream analysis than in giving the woman practical suggestions for empowering herself in a meaningful way. The story is well-written and competently narrated, but the ending gives the wrong sort of message to young wives with unsatisfying marriages. I did, however, find the interweaving of the details of German grammar with the plot development to be creative and different.

quite the story

First time author, her debut novel. Interesting author that is best known for writing erotic poems. She went to college in Texas and to an Episcopal seminary. She states her writing encompasses sex, divinity and worlplay and this book does that. In this book Hausfrau is the German for housewife. An American woman marries a Swiss guy and moves to Switzerland. She does nothing to assimilate into the local society and instead becomes bored and starts making bad decisions and doing bad things. There are consequences. The book is really well written. You wonder if the author didn't lead this life at least to a certain extent to have all the thoughts she communicates in the book. I will try this author again assuming shewrites a second one.