American Housewife (Ellis)

American Housewife: Stories
Helen Ellis, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385541039


Summary
A sharp, funny, delightfully unhinged collection of stories set in the dark world of domesticity, American Housewife features murderous ladies who lunch, celebrity treasure hunters, and the best bra fitter south of the Mason Dixon line.

Meet the women of American Housewife:
♦ They wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it's cloudy.
♦ They casserole. They pinwheel.
♦ They pump the salad spinner like it's a CPR dummy.
♦ And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven.

These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation ritual of a book club to the getaway car of a pageant princess on the lam, from the gallery opening of a tinfoil artist to the fitting room of a legendary lingerie shop.

Vicious, fresh, and nutty as a poisoned Goo Goo Cluster, American Housewife is an uproarious, pointed commentary on womanhood. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1970
• Raised—Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
• Education—M.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York

Helen Ellis is the author of two novels, a collectiion of short stories, and one of essays. She is also a world class poker player.

Her first novel, Eating the Cheshire Cat (2001), is a dark comedy written in Southern Gothic fiction style. It tells the story of three girls raised in the South and the odd, sometimes macabre, tribulations they endure.

Her second novel, The Turning Book: What Curiosity Kills (2010), is a "teen vampire" story about a 16-year-old girl from the South adopted into a wealthy New York City family. The book's plot includes shape-shifting, teen romance, and the supernatural.

Ellis's story collection, American Housewife (2016) contains 12 stories that turn the stereotypical housewife ideal on its head. Each one centers on the trials and tribulations of a particular housewife.

In addition to writing, Ellis also competes in high-stakes poker tournaments. Passionate about poker from the time her father first taught her the game when she was six, she began playing in tournaments in 2008. Two years later, she won $20,000 at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
 
A year later, fellow author Colson Whitehead (Sag Harbor, etc.) hired her as his coach in the World Series of Poker. He wrote about the expperience in his book The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky and Death (2014).

(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/3/2016. Also from a 12/22/2015 New York Times article.)

Book Reviews
Ms. Ellis, 45, calls herself a housewife. But that only begins to describe her. She is also a shrewd poker player who regularly competes in high-stakes tournaments, and the author of a forthcoming story collection, American Housewife, that focuses a dark and humorous lens on the domestic… The stories are addictive and full of pitch-perfect observations like, "the only thing with less character than Chardonnay is wainscoting" and "Delores was as fertile as a Duggar." They are populated by, among others, neighbors in a co-op whose fight over decorating turns deadly; women in a book club trying to seduce a new member into carrying their babies; and a chilling series of dead doormen.
J. Courtney Sullivan - New York Times


The 12 compact tales are delightfully dark and leave readers always rooting for the housewife, no matter how twisted her plots…. With punchy writing and unique conundrums, American Housewife can be devoured in a sitting. Resist. The tales are best consumed like the pinot grigio some of these housewives enjoy—daily.
Christina Ledbetter - Washington Post


Satirical humor as twisted as screw-top bottles — and more effervescent than the stuff that pours out of them… American Housewife is a better cure for winter blahs than hot chocolate… The opening story captures her frisky, subversive take on domesticity…  Ellis's [one-liners] are outrageously good… ‘What I Do All Day’ is a three-page tour-de-force, boasting as many dazzlers as a wealthy Upper East Side matron's jewelry box… Amid the furious activity, Ellis works her story to a touching punchline you never saw coming. This is shock and awww writing… Ellis is a master of the unhinged monologue, delivered by narrators whose conventional, seemingly benign, honeyed patter gradually reveals the disturbing demon within.
Heller McAlpin - NPR


The first line of Helen Ellis' book of short stories is a kind of call to arms for the American housewife. Quote, "inspired by Beyonce, I stallion walk to the toaster." Ellis is a self-described housewife. She's the kind of Southern lady that deals a mean hand of cards and once played at the World Series of Poker.
Rachel Martin - NPR Morning Edition


Delightful in its originality and eerie, almost demented, humor… Ellis’s stories start in a place that’s quite familiar—the domestic sphere of New York City’s ritzy Upper East Side, where the author also resides—and end in a place that’s decidedly not. Her characters are stealthily complex, their perfectly composed, well-maintained exteriors the ideal cover for inner lives that seethe with pathos and ambition.”
Julia Felsenthal - Vogue.com


The perfect cocktail of Amy Sedaris's wacky wit and Margaret Atwood's insight, Ellis's prose is both searingly funny and emotionally sound… Pithy, witty, and biting, a combination that makes Ellis's writing delicious… The women in these stories are alone in their homes all day, and in that they possess a unique power, command over a confined kingdom.
Claire Luchette - Elle.com
 

Crackle[s] with domestically ambivalent characters: the modern day Betty Drapers in Helen Ellis’s short story collection, American Housewife, whose tensions over wainscoting and book clubs escalate into near-farce.
Vogue


Ellis...turns domesticity on its head in her darkly funny 12-story collection, featuring hausfraus in various stages of unraveling.... [She] hits the satirical bull’s-eye with a deliciously dry, smart voice that will have readers flipping the pages in delight.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Each story is lively and active. The hilarity of each premise will pull in readers, and the twists will keep them glued to the pages. Anyone who has...felt awkwardly settled into the domestic life will appreciate this not-to-be-missed collection. —Mara Dabrishus, Ursuline Coll. Lib., Pepper Pike, OH
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Ellis’s 12 short stories about women under pressure are archly, acerbically, even surreally hilarious.... Her pacing is swift and eviscerating, and her characters’ rage and hunger for revenge are off the charts… Perfectly crafted. —Donna Seaman
Booklist


The wives in these guffaw-out-loud short stories by novelist Ellis are a wonderfully wacky crew.... The 12 stories here cheekily tackle subjects ranging from neighborhood book clubs to reality TV shows, and while a few of them feel, sadly, like filler, breaking up the madcap momentum, on the whole, they are deliciously dark and deliriously deranged.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for American Housewife...then take off on your own:

1. Of the 12 stories, which do you find funniest, or most pointed? Did the stories resonate with parts of your life? Did any of them offend you or make you uneasy? Which ones made you laugh the hardest?

2. What, precisely, in these stories, is Helen Ellis skewing? Talk about the stereotypical housewife and how each story, or perhaps all of them together, subverts the supposed ideal?

3. Follow-up to Question 2: On the surface, Ellis might be accused of poking fun at her creations. But is she? Could you make the case that, ultimately, her characters are sympathetic, silly or self-absorbed on the surface but with hidden depths, even tragic flaws?

4. Ellis has a brilliant touch with one-liners. Take the fury and near violence of "What I Do All Day"; then talk about that last line. How does it undercut what comes before? Were you taken by surprise?

5. Pick out other passages/lines to discuss. Do you find them sad, funny, poignant, or dead-on accurate: Here are a few for starters:

"Dead Doorment" —When my husband's at work I don't get lonely. I have plenty to do. There's the dusting.

"The Fitter—A perfect bra provides "the confidence of a homecoming queen. It's a tiara for your ta-tas.

"Hello! Welcome to Book Club!" —Your Book Club name will be a secret name that only we will call you. Trust me, you’ll like it. It feels like a dollar bill in your bra.

(Questions by LitLovers. Feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)