Yesteryear

If you wanted to be a wealthy Christian and maintain a good reputation, you had to publicly renounce luxuries. Only then could you keep them. It was a strange tug-of-war I’d been witnessing all my life. The only surprise was that it was finally happening to me. ‘I was becoming the sort of woman other women envy.’ Natalie Heller Mills is a ‘tradwife’ influencer who, together with her husband Caleb, runs a farm in Idaho and promotes a traditional way of life. A Christian wife with several children in tow, Natalie turns her lifestyle choice into a statement showcased on social media. She brands the products she makes in her beautiful home with laminate flooring and high ceilings. Behind the screen, however, there are nannies and staff: a business and an organisational machine that turn the lifestyle Natalie has chosen into a full-fledged job. “Sometimes my perfect life, my ability to live it to the full, made me feel absolutely awful.” One morning, however, Natalie wakes up to find herself in 1885 (or so she thinks), having to come to terms with the lifestyle she has chosen but without the glitz and comforts of the present day. It could be a journey through time or simply an unreliable narrator: the fact remains that everything is grimmer and darker, the children are poorly dressed, and rural life is harsh and devoid of charm. The narrative shifts between the present and 1885, offering dramatic, at times satirical, glimpses in which inconsistencies gradually emerge (culminating in a mid-novel twist that will overturn the course of the narrative). “I thought I knew what real fear was. But this – what I’m feeling now – has nothing to do with the fear I’m familiar with. The feeling I’m experiencing is vast, black and unfathomable. It’s like plummeting into Hell.”

A bestseller with one and a half million copies sold in the United States (and with a film adaptation starring Anne Hathaway in the pipeline), "Yesteryear" explores themes relevant to our present day, telling their story through an effective narrative lens. It treads the fine line of dystopia whilst bringing to the surface contradictions and thought-provoking aspects. Natalie’s life thus becomes a paradox, prompting the reader to reflect – though not always without a degree of simplification – on the deep-rooted causes of certain choices. It takes a particular worldview to the extreme and explores what it means to live with a disconnect between the present and the desired future. And what it truly entails to exercise one’s personal freedom. 

Yesteryear

Dear Claire Burke

Neri Pozza, 446 pp., 22 euros