{"product_id":"9780812997545","title":"Hausfrau","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER • “Sexy and insightful, this gorgeously written novel opens a window into one woman’s desperate soul.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAnna was a good wife, mostly. \u003c\/b\u003eFor readers of \u003ci\u003eThe Girl on the Train\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Woman Upstairs\u003c\/i\u003e comes a striking debut novel of marriage, fidelity, sex, and morality, featuring a fascinating heroine who struggles to live a life with meaning—“a modern-day Anna Karenina tale.”*\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eAnna 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.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eHausfrau\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Elegant, erotic . . . There is much to admire in Essbaum’s intricately constructed, meticulously composed novel, including its virtuosic intercutting of past and present.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For a first novelist, Essbaum is extraordinary because she is a poet. Her language is meticulous and resonant and daring.”\u003cb\u003e—NPR’s \u003ci\u003eWeekend Edition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “We’re in literary territory as familiar as Anna’s name, but Essbaum makes it fresh with sharp prose and psychological insight.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Essbaum’s poignant, shocking debut novel rivets.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eUs Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A powerful, lyrical novel . . . \u003ci\u003eHausfrau\u003c\/i\u003e boasts taut pacing and melodrama, but also a fully realized heroine as love-hateable as Emma Bovary and a poet’s fascination with language.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Huffington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “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.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Brain-surgically constructed to fascinate you, entertain you, and then make you question what a life lived with meaning looks like—all with a sense of poetic discipline and introspection.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eHausfrau\u003c\/i\u003e] is masterly as it moves toward its own inescapable ending.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eMadame Bovary\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eFifty Shades of Grey\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Express\u003c\/i\u003e (U.K.)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*\u003ci\u003eGlamour \u003c\/i\u003e(U.K.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrom the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Random House Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47118775353584,"sku":"9780812997545","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780812997545_p0.jpg?v=1763749621","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780812997545","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}