In Jill Alexander Essbaum’s bestselling novel, Hausfrau, Anna Benz, an American in her late thirties, lives with her Swiss husband, Bruno—a banker—and their three young children in a postcard-perfect suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. She tries to rouse herself with new experiences: German language classes, Jungian analysis, and a series of sexual affairs she enters with an ease that surprises even her. But Anna can’t easily extract herself from these affairs. When she wants to end them, tensions escalate, and her lies start to spin out of control.

Jill Alexander Essbaum

(Megan Sembera Peters)