the one about despair.

This was not a book to read Thanksgiving week.  The December pic for my Stillwater book club was A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.  Worst. Book. Ever.

I'm going to give away the whole book right here so no one EVER has to read it.  The main character has a god awful mother who mistreats him.  He develops a sexual addiction and traipses all over Europe finding a countess to marry.  The countess then cheats on the sex addict and has a baby boy with the gardener.  The sex addict beats the Boy.  The countess dies.  The Boy then spends his eternity attempting to kill said sex addict.

It really just disintegrates from there.

The writing is terrible.  Third person that sounds like "he did this and then she did that."

on page 281, "it was just a story about despair."

Um. Maybe you could have started out with that disclaimer and saved us all the trouble.