Keeping the House by Ellen Barker is a novel spanning the first half of the twentieth century and three generations of a family settled in Pine Rapids, Wisconsin.

Barker explores what it means to be the perfect wife, at the turn of the twentieth century, through two World Wars, and into the 1950’s. My favorite parts of the novel are the quotes from Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping at the beginning of each chapter.

The novel jumps back in forth in time a lot, telling the story of the Mickelson family in bits and pieces, and I found this distracting and sometimes hard to follow.

However, Barker achieves her overall goal of creating a picture of the daily challenges a woman faces trying to be the perfect wife while suppressing her own inner desires. A worthwhile read.