Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke review – the downfall of an all‑American tradwife | Fiction
Could Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear be the first great tradwife novel? This was my hope: finally, a literary response to the unhinged social trend of women cosplaying “traditional Christian values” – pronatalism and obeying one’s husband – to large social media followings. I am not immune to hype, and Yesteryear has been hyped to high heaven, prompting massive auctions for the rights, and landing a film deal with Anne Hathaway. You have to admit that the premise – Instagram tradwife wakes up in what appear to be the actual pioneer days, and finds that traditional wifedom is not as much of a hoot as her whitewashed social media re-enactment had implied – is genius. As one of the “Angry Women” our heroine Natalie so disparages, I was looking forward to some sweet schadenfreude. Natalie is a “good Christian woman” with a rageful core, or, as she describes herself, “the manic pixie American dream girl of this nation’s deepest, darkest fantasies”. She knows exactly what she’s doing, because “America hates women. What a comfort to remember.” Her biting and occasionally …
