The Lunar Housewife
A Novel
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3.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
A stylish and suspenseful historical page-turner following an up-and-coming journalist who stumbles onto a web of secrets, deceptions, and mysteries at a popular new literary magazine--inspired by the true story of CIA intervention in Cold War American arts and letters.
"Wonderfully entertaining and slyly subversive. Caroline Woods pens a story that will linger in the memory!" —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network
Louise Leithauser's star is on the rise. She’s filing stories at her boyfriend Joe's new literary magazine and the novel she's writing is going swimmingly. But when she overhears Joe and his business partner fighting about listening devices and death threats, Louise can't help but investigate, and learns that someone is pulling Joe’s strings--someone who doesn't want artists criticizing Uncle Sam. Meanwhile, opportunities are falling in Louise's lap that she'd have to be crazy to refuse. Can Louise let doors keep opening for her, while the establishment censors her fellow writers? As her suspicions mount, Louise's novel is colored by her newfound knowledge. And when she’s forced to consider her future sooner than she planned, Louise needs to decide whether she can trust Joe for the rest of her life.
Full of period detail and nail-biting tension, Caroline Woods channels 1950s New York glamour as Louise comes face to face with shocking secrets, brutal sexism, and life or death consequences. The Lunar Housewife is a historical thriller rich with meaning for modern readers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This cleverly inventive yet authentic–feeling early Cold War thriller from Woods (Fräulein M.) takes on the New York publishing world from a woman's perspective, while containing a novella-length American-Soviet space romance written by the protagonist with parallels to her own life. In 1953, Louise Leithauser has been pseudonymously writing about politics for a hot new literary magazine cofounded by her boyfriend, Joe Martin, and his charismatic partner, Harry Billings. The role brings her close to publishing celebrities who could be interested in the romance she's working on, but also forces her into socializing with Harry and the woman he's dating behind his wife's back, a waitress who also knows the unglamorous secrets of Louise's past. Meanwhile, an overheard conversation leads Louise to investigate Joe's connections to government censorship of literary expression. Real-life writers add spice, including a playfully frank Ernest Hemingway, whom Louise befriends during an interview for which he requests a female reporter. The suspense builds as Woods shifts between the main narrative and the space romance, which provides a window into Louise's frustrated mindset about gender dynamics, politics, and power. This is a delightfully different variety of spy story.
