REVIEW: The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead
I was looking for the upcoming book by this author, whose first book In My Dreams I Hold a Knife I read and enjoyed last year. I discovered I’d missed a whole book in between. I read a sample of The Last Housewife and was hooked enough to order the whole book and start reading it immediately.
Shay Deroy is a 30-year-old writer (currently unemployed but ostensibly working on a book) living with her husband Cal in Dallas. Shay previously worked for online publications (writing what sound like Buzzfeed-type articles), but quit at the wealthy Cal’s suggestion, and now she’s at loose ends. As the book opens, Shay indulges in a recent habit: listening to the latest episode of a true-crime podcast hosted by her childhood friend Jamie.
Shay is shocked to hear that the subject of this episode is a college friend of hers, Laurel, who apparently died recently under suspicious circumstances. Shay’s even more shocked when Jamie appeals to her personally during the podcast to get in touch regarding the case. Before she can think better of it, Shay has booked a flight to upstate New York, a return to the site of the darkest and most turbulent period of her life.
Shay grew up lower-middle class in a small town in Texas. Her father left when she was 10, and Shay watched her mother sink herself into a series of bad relationships in a desperate search for love and validation. Shay herself turned to beauty pageants to escape her life, and learned the dichotomy of being beautiful – being desired was both a burden (even a danger at times) and a form of power.
Pageant prize money won Shay a ticket out of Texas and into an elite liberal arts college in New York. There Shay made two close friends – sporty, sarcastic Clem and shy, dreamy Laurel. It’s Laurel’s death – murder or suicide? – that Jamie reports and that sends Shay racing back to confront her past.
Clem had committed suicide in their senior year at Whitney, and the similarities between the two deaths shake Shay to her core. She hasn’t seen or spoken with Laurel since graduation, but she feels compelled to try to understand why Laurel would kill herself – if indeed her death was a suicide.
Shay makes contact with Jamie and finds that the local police are not helpful, to say the least. The police chief was an officer 10 years before when Laurel was assaulted, and his disdain for young women, particularly the young women of the fictional Whitney College, is clear. But Shay and Jamie get a lead when Laurel’s landlady (rather unbelievably, I thought) allows them to search her apartment.
From there, the book goes in a direction I wasn’t really expecting – the world of sex clubs, and further, sexual subjugation of women. It’s not subject matter I really have much of an affinity for – even consensual D/s stories are usually offputting to me.
For Shay, it brings her back to the time during her junior year in college that she, Clem and Laurel were in what can only be described as a sex cult – under the sway of Don, a charming, charismatic and ultimately evil man.
As Shay gets closer to uncovering the truth of what happened to Laurel, she also gets drawn back into a world she had turned her back on, but one that still holds some twisted appeal for her.
I didn’t quite buy the way the three young women fell under the control of Don; it was convincing at times but felt trite at other times. Clem was the most resistant, which made sense, because nothing in her character seemed to indicate an interest in the things that Don does to them and forces them to do. Laurel is a more understandable subject; a seeker who is looking for someone to take care of her and tell her what to do.
Shay is in the middle – ambivalent, both attracted to and repulsed by the lifestyle, both in the past and the present. Knowing how things turned out 10 years before should be a powerful motivation for Shay to hate everything that reminds her of that time. And it is, and yet…there is still a draw towards that darkness that she can’t quite resist.
The story turns kind of predictable; Shay’s relationship with Jamie deepens and her relationship with Cal deteriorates. Cal is a cardboard character – a finance bro asshole who Shay never indicates any actual interest in. How they got married is a mystery, though it’s chalked up to Shay sort of settling for the life that she thought she wanted.
The last quarter is also predictable, in a different way: several crazy twists as the stakes heighten and Shay gets closer to the truth. Shay takes a lot of chances with her safety that don’t really make sense and seem simply to be in the service of the story. There was also the late introduction of a villain that was telegraphed from a mile away (in a suspense story, whenever the characters specifically think or say, “this person will help us!” – that person is not going to help you and you should stay FAR away from them).
I found The Last Housewife compelling, but it left a bitter aftertaste that actually kept me from starting another book for about a week. The misogyny inherent in the world that Shay inhabits – it’s not that it’s not realistic; maybe it’s too realistic or rather it’s just a very specific slice of reality that was ugly to read about. I gave this book a B. I’m still looking forward to Winstead’s upcoming book; she’s a strong writer.
Best,
Jennie
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