The Mad Wife
By Megan Church
Sourcebooks Landmark, Sept 2025, 352pp.

The Short of It:

Holy smokes.

The Rest of It:

My favorite thing is to read in bed, late into the night. This one night, I poorly planned my reading, scrolled up and turned the last page. What? So, I did what any reader would do. I began to frantically scroll through Hoopla and Libby to find my next read. Fast.

The Mad Wife is what I settled on. I loved the retro cover and I have a thing for domesticity and minutiae. I dove right in.

Wow. The wife in this story isn’t mad like angry, although there is plenty to be angry about. No, Lulu Mayfield has been deemed MAD by well-meaning neighbors, her own husband, and the doctors who see her. Diagnosed with Hysteria.

In the 50’s, that seemed to be a thing. Raising baby after baby with little to no sleep and still responsible for putting dinner on the table every single night, keeping the house presentable, and maintaining an attractive appearance (hair, makeup, and the like). It was the norm, and apparently women who couldn’t do it were prescribed meds to help, or even worse.

Lulu Mayfield is a likable but flawed character. She has a darling son, and a newborn baby but motherhood is never easy for her. Not like it is for the other moms in her suburban neighborhood. They seem to do it without any effort at all. Every morning she gazes at the empty home across the street, daydreaming that it’s hers and she can enjoy just a little bit of peace.

That home is not empty for long. Bitsy and Gary move in with their daughter Kathleen and things are not quite right. Bitsy is friendly, but distant. Lulu watches them when they don’t know it, and Bitsy is off in a way that’s hard for Lulu to understand. What is going on over there?

Lulu has some good friends in her circle, but no one truly understands the isolation that she feels or just how bad she’s gotten. As she struggles to do daily tasks, she fails miserably. She begins to question the point of living. Even with her children, she finds herself to be a poor example of parenting and an even worse example of a doting wife as her husband struggles with insecurities at work.

This is a marvelous read. I couldn’t help but root for Lulu. She’s so fragile and yet no one sees how despondent she is. Doctors!! Oh  my gosh, male doctors are still doing this today. Dismissing serious symptoms and calling it anxiety. Lose some weight, get some exercise. Sure. When you can’t even lift your head off the pillow, how the heck are you supposed to do that?

Church’s writing stirs up empathy and rage!! I often found myself absolutely outraged at what Lulu was subjected to. Reading the book definitely reminded me of those early morning hours spent with a screaming infant and how easy it was to feel so alone in the world.

There is a twist that I will not mention. You need to discover it for yourself. 

Well done. Highly recommend.

Source: Borrowed
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