Quartet of cadavers capsize spouse abuse tale
THE BEST WAY TO BURY YOUR HUSBAND
Alexia Casale Viking, €22
It’s lockdown and Sally is cooped up with her husband. Sally married the much older Jim when she was 17 as she was desperate to escape from the home of her violent and abusive father. At the age of 20 she had two children and was trapped in a bad marriage. By the time the pandemic hits, both her adult children have moved out and Jim has ensured that she rarely sees or speaks to them.
Facing yet another physically agonising consequence for a trivial misstep, Sally unthinkingly grabs her granny’s iron skillet, and hits Jim, accidentally killing him. Instead of grief, she is overwhelmed with relief. She is giddy with freedom knowing that she can eat what she wants, when she wants, dress how she pleases and not have to spend her time second-guessing what might anger her (now late) husband.
These opening chapters of The Best Way to Bury Your Husband are great. There’s nothing funny about domestic abuse or murder – but the newly liberated Sally is hilarious. And while her antics are entertaining, author Alexia Casale also neatly answers the eternal question of “Why did she stay?” The insidious and gradual escalation of control, isolation and violence are laid out in a concise way the reader can understand.
Within days Sally has met three other women who have also just killed their abuser. Two of them are strangers to her – a black former nurse, Ruth, and the Muslim mum of two girls, Samira. The third is Sally’s old pal Janey from whom she has been estranged for years. The women band together and come up with a plan to dispose of their recently deceased spouses.
I get that Casale is trying to show that domestic violence can happen to any woman regardless of colour, faith or social status but the sheer number of women and dead bodies renders it all a bit farcical. Survivors of spousal abuse take years, sometimes decades, to recover from what has been done to them so the idea that four women who have been infantilised to the point of helplessness by their respective husbands would be able to embark on an Ocean’s Eleven-style caper to provide alibis and dispose of four bodies is hard to credit.
And that’s before you think about the shock of having just killed someone. Casale was brave to tackle this subject but given the scale of the murders I think her intentions backfired. That said, I like her style and look forward to what she writes next.