Corporation Wife

by Catherine Gaskin

The intimate, revealing novel that opens the door to the bedrooms and boardrooms of the corporate men and the women who married them and the company they promise to love, honor and obey. Considered a Peyton Place of 60s corporate America.

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Catherine Gaskin (2 April 1929 – 6 September 2009) historical fiction and romantic suspense.

She was born in Dundalk Bay, Louth, Ireland in 1929. When she was only three months old, her parents moved to Australia, settling in Coogee, a suburb of Sydney, where she grew up. Her first novel This Other Eden, was written when she was 15 and published two years later. After her second novel, With Every Year, was published, she moved to London. Three best-sellers followed: Dust in Sunlight (1950), All Else is Folly (1951), and Daughter of the House (1952). She completed her best known work, Sara Dane, on her 25th birthday in 1954, and it was published in 1955. It sold more than 2 million copies, was translated into a number of other languages, and was made into a television series in Australia in 1982. Other novels included A Falcon for the Queen (1972) and The Summer of the Spanish Woman (1977).

Catherine Gaskin moved to Manhattan for ten years, after marrying an American. She then moved to the Virgin Islands, then in 1967 to Ireland, where she became an Irish citizen. She also lived on the Isle of Man. Her last novel was The Charmed Circle (1988). She then returned to Sydney, where she died in September 2009, aged 80, of ovarian cancer.

Reviews

[Berthine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a psychologically accurate period novel, written in that time. Even the quaint title fits into the picture after a while, however unfortunate. It would make for good tv as women’s life in the 60s, however depressing in it’s reality. The writer tries to sell it to us but in a half-hearted attempt. The cover picture in some editions also defied the title. Three wives Harriet Laura and Sally, and Jeanie, a young woman, and their very real psychological and emotional reality in a world dominated by money and working men. A precursor of the feminist era.

[Tabea Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Protagonistin steht im ständigen Spannungsfeld zwischen Liebe, gesellschaftlichen Erwartungen &‘ dem Wunsch nach Selbstbestimmung.

Es gibt einen guten Einblick in die damaligen sozialen Strukturen, kann aber für heutige Leser manchmal etwas vorhersehbar wirken. Wer Liebesgeschichten mit gesellschaftskritischem Hintergrund mag, findet hier eine solide Lektüre, die zum Nachdenken über Macht, Freiheit &‘ Abhängigkeiten anregt.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four wives of corporate executives.