Book Review: All The Little Houses by May Cobb

I loved May Cobb’s The Hunting Wives (now deservingly an HBO series), so believe me when I tell you that her latest novel, a salaciously unhinged interpretation of Little House On The Prairie set in 1980s Texas, may be the best thing she’s ever written!

This multi-point-of-view novel opens with a dead body. We only find out exactly who died, whodunnit and what happened over the course of the story, which is so relentlessly engaging that I finished its almost five hundred pages in less than a day. And I won’t lie: that ending was both diabolical and enraging. While this book stands perfectly well on its own, I’m so glad Ms. Cobb has promised a sequel so that I can find out what happens next!

Our ostensible heroine is Jane Swift, the middle daughter of a poor family that’s just moved to the East Texas town of Longview. The Swifts are planning on continuing the homesteading life they’re used to after an ill-considered sojourn in Dallas. Jane is mostly happy about this, even if it means getting to know a whole new set of people. Luckily, she’s got that routine down pat:

Everyone loves a good girl. Especially a poor one, stuck in her station in life, who knows her lowly place yet manages to plaster on a smile.

 

Here’s an underdog they can all root for, but not be threatened by.

 

She will never have what they have; the cards are stacked against her, so: Bless her heart.

 

But look at how she smiles, curtsies, all gratitude and light, repeating her father’s down-home parables about honesty and self-worth.

 

I don’t mind being that girl. Been her my whole life. Teeth bared, yet lips curved into a grin. A warm sensation spreads across my chest when I first meet someone, win them over. It’s so easy.

 

Too easy, in this one-pony town.

The only thing she really misses about Dallas is her boyfriend, Luke. Once they’re both eighteen, they’re planning on running away together to New York City. Her birthday is in only a few short weeks, and they have big plans of pursuing their respective artistic interests in the Big Apple. For now, though, their relationship has to remain a secret. Jane knows that her family will not approve, but little does she foresee how Longview itself will mess with her dreams.

Like many small towns, the divide between rich and poor is stark. And while it’s easy enough for a new girl like Jane – with a charming woodworker father and an organic love potion-peddling mother – to ingratiate herself with almost everyone she meets, the social structure of the area has been far more rigid for people who’ve lived there a lot longer. 

Nowhere is this more exemplified than in Charleigh, now the richest woman in town after a childhood of abject poverty. She still can’t shake how badly she felt she was treated by her peers as a child, and how those same people always seem to be watching for any social misstep on her part, even though she’s now married to the wealthy and devoted Alexander Andersen. The chaos that the Swift family has brought to Longview’s delicate social order puts the already sensitive Charleigh on edge, leading to a rare fight with her husband:

“You never see my side in all this. I wasn’t raised in some fancy family like you. I don’t have the privilege of letting things slide off me–”

 

“But that’s precisely my point!” Alexander shouted. “You do! I’ve given you everything–”

 

He loves to toss that in her face, failing to grasp just how deep her scars run. That yes, she knows they’re on top now, but she also damn well knows how fast and far one can fall. How precarious everything is. He doesn’t understand what it feels like to grow up like she did–never accepted, always pitied or shunned. Forever on the outside, desperate for access and approval. He doesn’t know the depths of ruthlessness in people like [the more established] Monica and her little spawn, Blair.

Compounding Charleigh’s anxieties are her fears for her daughter Nellie, who should have the world on a platter. Instead, Nellie has a penchant for violence and other antisocial behaviors, exacerbated by her mother’s constant interference. When Nellie and Jane become archenemies, while the other Swifts continue to wreak havoc on the day-to-day lives of the Longview residents, murder seems almost inevitable. But who will be the victim, who the killer, and who the accomplices?

This book was some of the most bonkers fun I’ve had in crime fiction in a while! Despite the clear references in the text to the source material, I didn’t actually realize how closely this novel was modeled on Little House On The Prairie until the “Conversation With the Author” section included in the back. All the Little Houses is so tonally different from the wholesome children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, yet it works so beautifully in conversation with the prose and television series, especially given the meaningful critiques and new information we’ve learned of the original novels in recent years. I can’t wait for Ms. Cobb to write more in this universe, and I am so excited already for the sequel!