Neighbors | Book Chatter

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
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Good Neighbors
By Sarah Langan
Washington Square Press, 9781982144371, October 2021, 320pp.

The Short of It:

No good neighbors here. This is an example of how an entire neighborhood can fall prey to rumors, lies, and accusations if the right person makes it her mission to to see a neighborhood into ruin.

The Rest of It:

You might have a Maple Street in your neighborhood. That perfect cul de sac neighborhood, that borders a park, is home to many families and children, and yes, drama, lots of it.

One very hot summer, the maws of Maple Street literally open as a result of global warming and climate change. Their once idyllic neighborhood is now home to a very large sink hole. One that oozes noxious fumes and sludge that covers every surface, shoes, walls, car tires, carpets. You name it. The neighborhood kids, affectionately called The Rat Pack (sarcasm) congregate as best they can while the sink hole seems to have its own life. But when something happens to one of their own and the accusations start flying, the inhabitants of Maple Street begin to take sides and just short of a lynching, one family finds themselves as the target.

I found it interesting that the street in question is Maple Street. Do you remember that Twilight Zone episode where all the neighbors turn on each other? It was called The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and that same title applies here. Seemingly sane people become anything but that. Common sense goes out the window and the family at the top of their list struggles just to live in this hostile neighborhood.

At first, my book club didn’t think there would be much to discuss but we took the entire time discussing the book and how, although a bit ridiculous when it came to the sink hole, we all agreed that a neighborhood could easily turn if the right person was stoking the fire. Think of your neighborhood groups like Next Door. I cannot belong to these groups. Their constant chatter about a kid on the corner, or a car driving by more than once, gives me anxiety. But it just takes one person to stir up hysteria in a neighborhood.

This was not an enjoyable read. There is a lot of nastiness going on but it was suspenseful even though much of the plot points are given away at the top of each chapter via news articles. I had absolutely no problem flying through this one. I had to know how it all ended given how grim the story was.

Have you read it? It was a good book to discuss.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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