At Home with the Jardines

Faith Jardine knows exactly what she is: a woman of "emotional mountain peaks and dark, deep valleys," while her husband Aubrey is "one vast and sunny plateau." Rain for him means a soothing shower; for her, a drenching torrent that sweeps away cattle and cottages. But it takes Mary, their new cook, to discover that the smiling plateau rests on solid rock. And Mary is more than a cook. She is housekeeper, mother, trained nurse, corporation counsel, keeper of the privy purse, chancellor of the exchequer, fighter of exorbitant bills, seamstress, doctor of small ills, and the acme of perpetual good nature. She is also, as Faith discovers during their honeymoon, the only person honest enough to see both of them clearly. Set in the early twentieth century, this is a domestic comedy that finds genuine comedy and genuine tenderness in the everyday negotiations of married life: the battles over household budgets, the parsing of personalities, and the small victories of learning to live with another person. Bell writes with a wry, self-deprecating voice that refuses to sentimentalize marriage while still believing in it.