It was hard for her not to be able to have a baby easily. 'In Nellie's case, she really wanted to have a child. She's stuck in that house, under the expectations that her husband has for her.' Plus ça change 'The house is a type of prison for Alice. As we started to see Nellie come through and Alice began to learn about the history of the house and the woman who lived in the house before her, she was able to place herself there with Nellie more easily. 'The house was important because I wanted to keep it very retro feeling. She's stuck in that house under the expectations that her husband has for her. She ends up having to follow her husband to the suburbs to this house that needs so much work. She's flawed, she's married but doesn't know what she wants next. 'In the present day, Alice is a 29-year-old woman who hasn't got it all figured out. 'I then wondered what it would be like to compare that to the way that we see wives in the present - are they really that different? It got me thinking about writing this book.' Homebound housewives It would have been a really interesting time as a woman to have to go through that shift.

It's now the '50s, they are suddenly expected to be back in the kitchen and to just have the babies. 'When the men went to war, the women were taking on these roles that the men had filled prior to that. It seems simplistic on the surface, the role of the housewife - but what does it look like underneath that? As a woman, how does she feel with those sort of constraints on her for what she can do? 'That made me wonder what her life really looked like back then.

I pictured this '50s housewife cooking from one of the cookbooks that I own. I had this clear picture of her planning her meatloaf for the day and working in the garden. I pictured this '50s housewife cooking from one of the cookbooks that I own - as I have a number of retro cookbooks that have been passed down through my family. 'I had this very clear vision of Nellie in the 1950s. That discovery leads to the uncovering of longstanding secrets, lies and truths about the traditional husband-wife dynamic.īrown spoke with Shelagh Rogers about writing Recipe for a Perfect Wife. While there, Alice stumbles onto old cookbooks left behind from the previous owner: 1950s housewife Nellie Murdoch. The story follows Alice Hale, a newlywed who reluctantly leaves behind a career to live with her husband in a big, empty house in the suburbs. That's the sentiment behind Recipe for a Perfect Wife, the latest novel by Toronto author Karma Brown. But as the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same - and old patterns can be hard to break. Marriage isn't the institution it was 60 years ago. A longer version of this interview originally aired on Feb.

Karma brown recipe for a perfect wife