Kate’s Review: “The Mad Wife”

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Book: “The Mad Wife” by Meagan Church

Publishing Info: S0urcebooks Landmark, September 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: They called it hysteria. She called it survival.

Lulu Mayfield has spent the last five years molding herself into the perfect 1950s housewife. Despite the tragic memories that haunt her and the weight of exhausting expectations, she keeps her husband happy, her household running, and her gelatin salads the talk of the neighborhood. But after she gives birth to her second child, Lulu’s carefully crafted life begins to unravel.

When a new neighbor, Bitsy, moves in, Lulu suspects that something darker lurks behind the woman’s constant smile. As her fixation on Bitsy deepens, Lulu is drawn into a web of unsettling truths that threaten to expose the cracks in her own life. The more she uncovers about Bitsy, the more she questions everything she thought she knew―and soon, others begin questioning her sanity. But is Lulu truly losing her mind? Or is she on the verge of discovering a reality too terrifying to accept?

In the vein of The Bell Jar and The Hours, The Mad Wife weaves domestic drama with psychological suspense, so poignant and immersive, you won’t want to put it down.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

I have watched “Mad Men” a couple of times with my husband (I haven’t seen the full series like he has but I’ve seen plenty), and one of my favorite characters is Betty Draper. I like her so much I named one of our kittens after her. I love how messy she is, I love how complex she is, I don’t love how she treats her kids but it fits with her characterization, and I ultimately feel super, super bad for her. Because the great tragedy of her is that she is a person who was forced into a lifestyle she didn’t want as a homemaker with little to no agency (plus all the trauma from her childhood. Cycles keep on cycling!). Which wasn’t uncommon for many of the women in those positions during that time period. I kept thinking about Betty Draper as I read “The Mad Wife” by Meagan Church, which is also about a homemaker being forced to put on a pleasant face and a perfect facade, until it starts to break her.

There is a bit of a mystery here in this historical fiction thriller. Lulu is a 1950s housewife living in an idyllic suburban community, and while her outer veneer is perfection, she feels incredible pressure to keep a tidy house, keep a high standing in the social circle, and to keep her husband and son happy with her support, love, and care. Right around the time she gives birth to her second child, new neighbors move into the neighborhood, and Lulu thinks that something strange is going on with them, especially the wife, Bitsy. It’s a plot ripe for the picking when it comes to domestic thriller, and Lulu is a great protagonist because while we are inside her head and are seeing the strange things she is seeing, she is also more and more unreliable as the story goes on as all of the pressures of idealized 1950s femininity and homemaking start to catch up with her. It makes for some well done suspense and tension, and getting further into Lulu’s unraveling also ups the unease to make it all the more unnerving.

But it’s Lulu’s plight trying to be the perfect wife in a suburban nuclear family that really made this work for me, as we are constantly reminded and shown how little agency she has as a wife, as a mother, and even as a woman just trying to live her life. So much of her identity is wrapped up in perfection that she can just barely achieve (or not achieve, as no one is perfect even when society wants them to be with threat of judgement and shunning if they are not) that when things do start to come undone, not only is she worried about losing her friends, or her marriage, she also has to worry about other horrifying consequences as a ‘hysterical’ woman. There are talks about pills with no real explanation as to what to expect, involuntary psych holds, and even lobotomies for women who are deemed mentally unfit, as well as women who feel so trapped that they end up killing themselves to escape it all. I found myself fearing for Lulu, especially as more details are slowly revealed (one bit which I KIND of saw coming, but still absolutely gutted me). It’s a start reminder that these supposed ‘good old days’ that so many people want to force us back were really not so good for so many people.

“The Mad Wife” is harrowing and a well done thriller tale about a woman who is treading towards the end of her rope. I quite enjoyed it.

Rating 8: A slow burn of unease and a commentary on the housewife ideal from decades ago (as it makes an insidious comeback in modern times), “The Mad Wife” is haunting and suspenseful and a well done domestic thriller.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Mad Wife” is included on the Goodreads lists “Uncanny 1950s Ladies”, and “Novels about Motherhood”.