Book Review: Yesteryear
This column originally appeared in the June 11th and 12th edition of the Courier in Russellville, AR
In the 1990s, there was a wave of girl power that stole across the airwaves, enlivening the boomboxes of little girls across the country with upbeat admonishments to cherish your friends and believe in yourself. Over the decades, this pop-feminism continued to morph, resulting in the 2010s girlboss, lean-in corporate feminism that promised that women could have it all, from the boardroom to their own homes. The promises, however, did not quite pan out. Besides the continued wage disparities, unequal access to opportunities, there’s other problems. There aren’t that many women CEO’s, but even if there were, that would still leave a lot of non-CEO workforce roles to fill. But more than that, the constant hustle is, well, exhausting. People generally, and women particularly, are feeling disillusioned by the promises of upward mobility, of economic possibility—having it all is hard.
With paradigm shifting, world changing event after paradigm shifting world changing event, we’re also left wondering why we were hustling so hard in the first place. In the wake of or perhaps alongside the rise of the girlboss there’s been a rise in conservatism too, culturally, fiscally, culturally as well. Between that and growing economic insecurity, as well as rising anti-intellectualism, the backlash against that kind of hustle culture feminism doesn’t feel too surprising.
As the future, and present, feel increasingly hard and insecure, we look for answers somewhere else, or begin to seek a return. Enter the tradwife. Tradwives have had their place in social media for a while now and there’s been plenty of think pieces on them. Yesteryear capitalizes on the fervor in fictional form. The book is buzzy. Anne Hathaway bought the film rights while the novel was still being drafted. I have not been able to open a social media app in the last six months without seeing an ad or review or roundup or something about this book. I’m not immune to popularity. I placed my library hold for the ebook edition months ago and it was only recently that it became available.
The book is a first-person account from fictional social media tradwife farm darling Natalie Heller Mills. Natalie wants her followers, and the readers, to believe she has it all. Five kids and counting, cowboy husband, social media empire, and that it is all easy and effortless for her, the best of women. Following multiple timelines, the book takes us from the woman’s peak and back stories us to how she found herself there as a millionaire, a celebrity, and a “perfect Christian woman.” While that unfolds, there’s the other timeline, the one that all the marketing is about. Natalie “wakes up trapped in 1855”, the Amazon blurb reads, or “awakens in the brutal reality of 1855” in the Goodreads synopsis. One day Natalie is a modern woman making her way in the world, capitalizing on “traditional” aesthetics with a million plus social media followers and the next she’s, supposedly, in 1855, living in the reality she’s been cosplaying. Unsurprisingly, she likes it a lot less. Don’t count it as a spoiler if I tell you that not everything is as it seems in either timeline. It’s a neat little premise and full of promise.
The book is sold on its premise. It’s buzzy; it’s relevant and timely. There’s something bloodthirsty about the premise though, a monkey’s paw narrative that warns you to be careful what you wish for. It’s unforgiving too, not shying away from the manufacturing Natalie does to create and maintain the illusion of their prospering farm. From the early infusion of wealth to the off-screen labor of farmhands, nannies, and producers, Yesteryear makes explicit the production necessary for social media influencers in this sphere. In the book’s reality, it is a failing farm, kept afloat at first only by infusions of immense wealth from Natalie’s father-in-law. Then it is Natalie keeping it going, running the whole family as a business. Emphasizing the serious lack of tradition behind images of apple-cheeked children in expensive beige clothes.
I found this book entirely propulsive. Natalie’s voice is sharp and ruthless, at times the eyes she turns on the world are precise and eviscerating. Caro Claire Burke does a good job of plotting two timelines and weaving them together, giving just enough of both to create tension and interest. I’ve seen the book marketed as a thriller and it is, I found myself wondering what was happening and what was going to happen next. I kept reading to understand how we got there, racing along in the prose to find answers.
But even as we race—or plod, in certain sections—towards the ultimate revelations, the book abandons its premise and its eviscerating gaze. The ending re-writes the things it’s been grappling with and reduces them to the particular problems and purviews of Natalie and her family alone. All the hints of a changed world, or potentially changed world, get swallowed up with the pills from her mother-in-law.
Ultimately, while the premise is interesting and the writing has its merits, the book stops short of saying anything at all or of exploring any new ground. It seems particularly incurious about the physical realities of having six children and about what true belief in these systems of thought might look like. It picks up a bunch of pieces that are genuinely interesting, but casts them all aside. It doesn’t take any of its characters seriously and reduces the interesting possibilities to caricature. I wanted catharsis or curiosity, to wrestle with the things that make tradwives interesting or instructive. Because whether or not they are right or wrong or real or not, they hold a genuine interest for people and speak to something that is happening in this particular moment.
Natalie is not a good person, though she is a fascinating character. I don’t think she’s likeable, but I did find myself liking her at times. I found her pitiable and surprisingly sympathetic for all the horror she wrought. She embodies what many of us are facing, even if she does it with a five-million-dollar loan. She is stuck in a system that demands constant work, constant sacrifice, and constant upkeep; she must maintain the performance of perfection while telling herself and everyone else that she loves it, that it’s easy. It is certainly a nightmare she finds herself in and while the book insists that it is one of her own making, I wonder how much choice one has in a situation where it feels like no choice at all.
Ultimately, the premise and production of this book is all fertile soil that’s left fallow. Motherhood, womanhood, religion, any system of belief are given short shrift and even the characters who start out so vibrant become dulled, rendered incomprehensible by the plot’s resolutions. I can see why Anne Hathaway purchased the film rights. That’s a dream come true for a writer, but because the book wasn’t finished at the time, it also meant that the revising and editing process was intended for an adaptation; that it was becoming a movie before it had finished becoming a book. All that promise isn’t wasted, but it’s not lived up to either.
