The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879 - 1958) was an American activist and novelist. Persephone books here republishes her 1924 novel, The Home-Maker.

Evangeline Knapp is, to put it mildly, an obsessive housewife, trying desperately to live up to the wifely ideals of the time. Her husband, Lester, is a poet and dreamer. Unluckily for him, he's stuck in a job he hates at a local department store, doing admin work. His boss doesn't think he's putting enough oomph into his job and we soon learn that his days are numbered. 

The children aren't happy either. Helen and Henry, the two eldest, are sickly and sensitive. Their young boy, Stephen, is a little too spirited, what would probably be described today as having attention deficit disorder. When Lester inevitably loses his job, he goes down a shame spiral and does himself a serious injury, resulting in permanently incapacitated legs. Desperate for money, Evangeline approaches the same department store her husband was fired from and throws herself on their mercy. She's offered a job - on a trial basis - but soon finds she has a knack for selling. On the home front, Lester takes to being a house husband like a duck to water. He's especially good at looking after the children and they all improve in health and happiness. What could go wrong? The rigid rules of society, that's what, that looks down on such arrangements. When a cure looms for Lester's legs, it forces a crisis. 

The Home-Maker is extraordinarily ahead of its time. Even today, such marital arrangements are in the minority. Dorothy Canfield Fisher writes a pleasant and easy to follow narrative, without being too preachy. You feel sympathy for her characters and the proposition that husbands should stay at home if they're better working there, while their wives stride out into the world work. It all makes sense in the context of the novel. There are a few clunky edges in the book, and perhaps philosophically it's not too well worked out. On the one hand there is a critique of capitalism, but then the wonders of the department store and Evangeline's ability to sell, sell, sell are lauded as marvels. 

Having said that, this is a very enjoyable and brave novel that doesn't stretch credulity. It's quite a believable scenario - even for 1924 - and Fisher calmly and methodically puts her case forward.  Definitely worth a look into.

The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Published by Persephone Books.