GOLDA'S HUTCH

Mild-mannered, introspective Craig Schumacher is an executive at a large company in San Francisco in the late 1990s. His colleagues consider him closer to a priest than a manager, due to his strict vegetarianism, daily yoga, and extreme patience. No one would guess that his reveries often drift to fantasies of bondage and domination; indeed, Craig and his wife, Shoshana, have a relationship that may well shock Craig’s co-workers. When his terse and aggressive direct report, Byron Dorn, observes Shoshana meeting multiple men at a townhouse outside the city, he becomes preoccupied with learning more about the couple’s dirty secrets. Seeing a golden opportunity for advancement, his ambitious wife, Adelle, encourages his spying. Meanwhile, the outspoken, witty Nigel Silver has earned Craig’s respect at work; a plum promotion gets him invited to Byron’s dinner parties, where Nigel’s enigmatic wife, Justine, discusses her work as a mortuary cosmetologist and reveals her attraction to dead bodies. This leads an excited Shoshana to believe that she’s finally found a kinky kindred spirit among all the bland corporate wives. As passions and intrigue develop, the three couples uncover new revelations about one another and about themselves. Over the course of the novel, Goldstein’s precise, elegant prose cleverly takes its time revealing his characters’ secret desires, building suspense for fun to come; Craig muses early on, for instance, that a corporate retreat “unshackled his derisive dark side,” hinting playfully at transgressive twists. Each chapter is structured around what the couples are eating in a given scene, but the real sustenance of the story is the careful attention the author pays to each person’s idiosyncrasies (and in what amount) to six robust, detailed character studies. The dialogue can often feel a bit stale—especially between the conniving Byron and Adelle; however, when readers are alone with each character’s thoughts, the author serves up something delicious.

Mar 11, 2025 - 07:30

Mild-mannered, introspective Craig Schumacher is an executive at a large company in San Francisco in the late 1990s. His colleagues consider him closer to a priest than a manager, due to his strict vegetarianism, daily yoga, and extreme patience. No one would guess that his reveries often drift to fantasies of bondage and domination; indeed, Craig and his wife, Shoshana, have a relationship that may well shock Craig’s co-workers. When his terse and aggressive direct report, Byron Dorn, observes Shoshana meeting multiple men at a townhouse outside the city, he becomes preoccupied with learning more about the couple’s dirty secrets. Seeing a golden opportunity for advancement, his ambitious wife, Adelle, encourages his spying. Meanwhile, the outspoken, witty Nigel Silver has earned Craig’s respect at work; a plum promotion gets him invited to Byron’s dinner parties, where Nigel’s enigmatic wife, Justine, discusses her work as a mortuary cosmetologist and reveals her attraction to dead bodies. This leads an excited Shoshana to believe that she’s finally found a kinky kindred spirit among all the bland corporate wives. As passions and intrigue develop, the three couples uncover new revelations about one another and about themselves. Over the course of the novel, Goldstein’s precise, elegant prose cleverly takes its time revealing his characters’ secret desires, building suspense for fun to come; Craig muses early on, for instance, that a corporate retreat “unshackled his derisive dark side,” hinting playfully at transgressive twists. Each chapter is structured around what the couples are eating in a given scene, but the real sustenance of the story is the careful attention the author pays to each person’s idiosyncrasies (and in what amount) to six robust, detailed character studies. The dialogue can often feel a bit stale—especially between the conniving Byron and Adelle; however, when readers are alone with each character’s thoughts, the author serves up something delicious.