American Housewife (Ellis) - Book Reviews

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