The woman on the cover of Lara Ehrlich’s debut short story collection appears to be almost airlifted from the 1950s—she could be an actor from The Donna Reed Show or perhaps a model for LOOK magazine, all aproned and ironed and fingernail perfect. Though unlike the manicured artifice of the “perfect housewife,” this woman’s body has a wildness, a hunger, a howl stirring beneath, and we are witness to its unveiling as a snarling wolf bares its teeth and tears a space for itself across the face of the woman. This dramatic and unforgettable cover is a perfect teaser for the question explored in the following pages: what happens when the wolf within woman breaks through the surface and emerges?
The fifteen stories within Animal Wife correspond with this duality of the woman and the wolf, the exterior and the interior, the domestic and the wild, the performative and primal natures that contribute to the lives of Lara Ehrlich’s characters as they seek liberation from the societal expectations and self-doubts that attempt to control and dominate them.