Goolrick, Robert

Wealthy businessman Ralph Truitt advertises for a reliable wife to make a home for him on his estate in rural Wisconsin in the early twentieth century and although he knows immediately that Catherine Land is not the woman she presented herself to be, he decides to marry her anyway in what becomes a risky arrangement for them both.

In 1948, a mysterious and charismatic man arrives in a small Virginia town carrying two suitcases--one with his worldly possessions and the other full of money--but after he inserts himself into the town's daily life and takes a job in the local butcher shop, a budding passion between the man and the wife of the town's weathiest citizen sets in motion a series of events that not only upset the quiet town but threaten to destroy both him and the woman.

In 1948, a mysterious and charismatic man arrives in a small Virginia town carrying two suitcases; one contains his worldly possessions, the other is full of money. He soon inserts himself into the town's daily life, taking a job in the local butcher shop and befriending the owner and his wife and their son. But the passion that develops between the man and the wife of the town's wealthiest citizen sets in motion a series of events that not only upset the quiet town but threaten to destroy both him and the woman.

Wealthy businessman Ralph Truitt advertises for a reliable wife to make a home for him on his estate in rural Wisconsin in the early twentieth century and although he knows immediately that Catherine Land is not the woman she presented herself to be, he decides to marry her anyway in what becomes a risky arrangement for them both.

The author recalls his childhood growing up in a small southern college town in the 1950s, discussing how his parents' devotion to keeping up appearances and a strict rule against talking about the family outside the home hid secrets of alcoholism and abuse that eventually drove him to attempt suicide.