In Need of a Good Wife

August 27, 2012
The forlorn men of McNeesâs newest (after The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott) may be in need of wives, but this 19th-century Western drama features one too many. In the fall of 1866, Clara Bixby, recently relieved of her job at a Manhattan tavern, follows a newspaper article to Destination, Neb., a community âpopulated almost entirely by bachelors.â Her aim: to secure her future by importing mail-order brides for the townsmen. Clara recruits Elsa Traugott, an immigrant laundress from Bavaria; and Rowena, an heiress widowed by the Civil War and fallen on hard times. Elsa is likeable, but Clara and Rowena immediately clash, and for good reason. Whatever empathy readers may feel for the whiny Rowena will likely be overwhelmed by how remarkably unlikeable she is. As a result of Claraâs distaste for her, she sets up Rowena with a widower butcher and father of five âin desperate need of a wife.â From there, each woman struggles to navigate her new life in the wake of war, far from home, and in the arms of unknown men. Agent: Marly Rusoff.