Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Morag Prunty (2006, Hardcover)

This novel is a small gem, although it is not fiction, so don't expect a guidebook. Instead, be prepared to think deeply about the mysteries of marriage through the eyes of two related women, living in two different periods of history.
Tressa lives in today's world. Bernadine, her grandmother, lived in a time of arranged marriage and is able to communicate with Tressa only through the journals she has left behind. Until she reads her grandmother's journals, Tressa has been thinking of her grandmother's marriage as ideal. She is in for quite a shock!
Although the two women are generations apart - each shared a similar dilemna, facing an abrupt disappointment after marriage, questioning their love and commmitment to their husbands.
As Tressa, living in a more modern world, continues to struggle with her own doubts, she starts to read her grandmother's journal and glimpes the truth behind the facade of perfection in her grandmother's marriage.
Both of the women's lives in this book are believable and the author doesn't shy away from hard truths - that love, even in the best of marriages, can wax and wane, that it may have to grow over time and that commitment and hanging on through times of deep, deep doubt and stress may be all that separates those who stay married from those who do not. Enduring some periods of lovelessness and animosity may even be normal. But there are clear hints that commitment, in and of itself, can lead to growth and love, even in "imperfect" relationships.
It raises so many questions: what IS the basis of a good marriage? How important is just "hanging in there" when all seems hopeless? When is it time to walk away? How is one's personal growth affected by learning to tolerate someone with habits which may be very different from one's own?

I really liked the writing style of Marag Prunty. I loved the recipes and the descriptions of life in Ireland and NY. I bought the book for a book club. I was expecting more practical tips or humor and did not find much of either in this book. I found it very sad that both marriages portrayed in the book contained wives who were just along for the ride and not truly in love with their husbands.