Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Yesteryear book cover
Author Caro Claire Burke
Big thanks to Penguin Random House, Knopf, and NetGalley for
the advanced copy of Caro Claire Burke’s timely and scathing debut Yesteryear.
I was excited to read this book for a few reasons, including the fact that it focuses
on the strange nostalgia of a tradwife and that the book has received some
serious buzz lately. From reading the premise, I anticipated that this book
might be something like Octavia Butler’s Kindred, where the heroine is
magically transported back to a time when being a minority was a threat to one’s
identity and existence. However, reading this book evoked so many competing
emotions including anger, humor, sadness and empathy. As I was reading the book,
I kept thinking of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, in which the unnamed
protagonist struggles with his own identity, often allowing others to define who
he is while also trying to navigate the ambiguity of his identity. It’s not
until the narrator grasps his invisibility that he truly recognizes its power
to live underground, and although he is finally able to define himself, he recognizes
that this involves removing himself from a society that frequently sees him as
stereotypes and tropes. Natalie, the narrator and proprietor of Yesteryear
is somewhat similar to Ellison’s Underground Man in that she recognizes that
her existence is largely defined by men and her relationship to them. However,
Burke has created a character who readers can feel both enmity and sympathy for
at the same time. I found the character of Natalie to be both frustrating and
sympathetic in that she is someone who has seemed to embrace the tradwife
lifestyle, but possibly for monetary and social mobility reasons. When the
novel begins, we meet Natalie on her ranch, Yesteryear, amidst a whirlwind of
activity, work, and children. She’s a kind of woman entrepreneur whose managed
to build her brand on social media, yet she’s also done this both by using her
family and in spite of her family, gradually fraying her relationship with her
oldest daughter, Clementine (there are some interesting old-fashioned names,
and so much of this book seems to be poking fun or at least winking at some of
these trends).
Although Natalie appears to be in control, managing her
family, her marriage and a successful business, she’s dealing with online
haters, who she calls the Angry Women, and the recent resignation of her social
media producer/assistant. As Natalie contemplates the potential fallout of this
resignation from her team of women and what it might mean for her brand, her
ranch, and her family, she awakens to find herself in Yesteryear, but it’s much
darker, drab, and her family is completely different. Natalie keeps making
reference to her family who isn’t her family. Her husband, Caleb, is now Old
Caleb, who no longer resembles the younger, hunky scion of a political dynasty.
Her daughters, Mary and Maeve, look like Natalie, but also don’t look like her daughters
from the present- Clementine, Junebug, and Jessa. Similarly, her sons, Abel and
Noah, look like her, but not like her other sons Samuel and Stetson. Something
is off in this Yesteryear, and Natalie eventually realizes that she has
awakened in 1805, not 2025.
I loved the way Burke alternates the chapters between
Natalie’s past and the historical past. It’s this kind of alternating
perspectives that I felt more sympathetic for Natalie, a smart and ambitious
young woman who is also subject to rigid gender norms and expectations to
women. Natalie grows up without her father with some ambiguity about whether he’s
actually deceased or not. Natalie realizes that her father never really died,
but her mother invented this story about his death to never really confront the
reality of their failed marriage. Like many of these myths, Natalie both
accepts and rejects it, never really acknowledging her father. The absence of a
father makes her mother work harder, developing her own business while raising
two daughters in Idaho. Natalie earns a spot at Harvard, where she meets Caleb
Mills, the youngest son of a CA senator and presidential candidate. It’s at
Harvard where Natalie’s rigidity in gender roles sets in; however, again Burke
presents a kind of sympathetic situation where Natalie struggles to fit in with
many of the other young women, and as a result rejects their ways and latches
on to the traditional and conservative ways from her home. I think that there’s
a lot to relate to in this situation, especially the challenges of finding an
identity in college when there aren’t many opportunities to explore or navigate
one’s identity. Natalie seems to have had her identity foreclosed at home, and
when faced with threats and differences in behaviors at Harvard, she reaches
out for what is familiar and comfortable to her. It’s also when she meets
Caleb, and immediately recognizes that he’s either her soulmate or her ticket
to a more lucrative and meaningful life as the wife of a senator’s son. It serves
as the opposite of the life she imagines living as a poor, struggling career
woman in a big city, forsaking the joys of marriage and motherhood to climb the
corporate ladder of success. It’s this kind of binary thinking that makes
Natalie reject the path she sees other young women, like her roommate Reena,
pursue, and why Natalie ultimately chooses the life of tradwife over finishing
her degree and seeking out her own career and identity. For Natalie, there’s no
in-between or no negotiation in these life objectives, which seems to be part
of her downfall. I recognize that women have these decisions to make about
careers, motherhood, and marriage, but Natalie seems to hold the path of career
woman in such scorn that she does not see this as a way forward for her.
Unfortunately for Natalie, Caleb’s not much of a worker
either, and after getting married and pregnant, the book takes a more humorous
turn as Natalie begins to have some buyer’s remorse about her husband, failing
to recognize that he’s not very ambitious and not very smart. In fact, Caleb’s
parents mention that he’d be a great politician some day since that’s a field
where people don’t need to think too much. I found that after marriage, when
Natalie finds out who Caleb really is, the book becomes much more satirical and
scathing. There’s hints of it when we learn about Natalie’s hidden pesticides
at the ranch or the secret trips to Target for her girls, but it’s Caleb’s
complete lack of ambition and his susceptibility to online conspiracy theories
that makes him such a hilarious and sadly true to life character. As Natalie
plots out a life by negotiating money for the ranch from her father-in-law,
Caleb seems to get dumber and dumber throughout the book, relying on chat
boards and online communities to learn about how to be a farmer, and eventually
causing the deaths of numerous cows and other farm animals. In fact, Natalie’s
world is filled with other interesting characters, including her mother-in-law
Amelia, who has resigned herself to a life of tranquilizers and pudding, and
her father-in-law Doug, whose political campaigns eventually take a dark turn
with the promise of a coming Civil War.
Meanwhile, as we learn more about how Natalie came to
develop her own brand and massive online following as a tradwife, Burke
intercuts these chapters with the current Natalie struggling as an actual wife
and mother in 1805. Although much darker, Natalie’s challenges to adapt to this
traditional life enables her to possibly question her decisions and choices in
life, as well as her reasons for monetizing her family and lifestyle on social
media. She realizes the challenges of baking, cooking, and rearing a family
without the extended support of a team of nannies and producers. She attempts
to escape, but her new family shares their limited knowledge about the savages
and vast wilderness surrounding their land. In one attempt at escape, Natalie
is caught in a beartrap, causing a nasty wound that her daughter needs to
primitively stitch. In another attempt at confronting the absurdity of her
situation, Old Caleb slaps Natalie, shocking her into the reality of submitting
to patriarchy. Although Natalie struggles with these traditional roles,
including the baking, housework, and chores, she attempts to make the lives of
her children, especially Maeve, more enjoyable by naming the farm animals, spending
time among the chickens, picking wildflowers, and creating sock puppets. It’s
these moments that Natalie tried to manufacture and capture for her followers
rather than taking the time to authentically enjoy them and bring joy to her
children. Again, I think that these moments of play and joy amidst the drab drudgery
of the early 1800s show how complex Natalie is, and that she is capable of
reaching out to others, even if it is also because she herself is completely
bored and desperate for escape.
I also loved how these alternating chapters build tension to
learning more about how Natalie’s brand is built up, while her life on the 1805
Yesteryear ranch drags on, leaving readers wondering whether she will escape or
even survive. This kind of alternating narrative kept me reading, wanting to
learn more about Natalie’s life. We see how she eventually learns to develop a
following, with a little help from some online influencer courses (which again
are scathing in their satire), and how in many ways this social media life
allows Natalie to construct the identity and family that she always wished for.
We also learn how this constant push to always be online and making content
impacts her family and her own sense of self, as a woman, as a wife, and as a
mother. I’m not going to reveal the ending, but I’m curious to read more about reactions
to the ending. I found it to be surprising, yet also revelatory and hilarious,
while also maintaining the darkness of the book. Yesteryear is a timely
and scathing book, sharp in its criticisms, but also with a sense of foreboding
and sorrow. Caro Claire Burke has written a complex character who wrestles with
her identity and sense of self amidst the culture wars that are currently
raging online. While Natalie doesn’t really seem to learn or progress, readers
have the opportunity to learn more about her and see how both society and social
media end up limiting her opportunities and her identity. It’s a fascinating book
that really challenged my thinking, but also made me laugh a lot, and in some
ways fear for my daughter. Highly recommended!
Author Caro Claire Burke
Big thanks to Penguin Random House, Knopf, and NetGalley for
the advanced copy of Caro Claire Burke’s timely and scathing debut Yesteryear.
I was excited to read this book for a few reasons, including the fact that it focuses
on the strange nostalgia of a tradwife and that the book has received some
serious buzz lately. From reading the premise, I anticipated that this book
might be something like Octavia Butler’s Kindred, where the heroine is
magically transported back to a time when being a minority was a threat to one’s
identity and existence. However, reading this book evoked so many competing
emotions including anger, humor, sadness and empathy. As I was reading the book,
I kept thinking of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, in which the unnamed
protagonist struggles with his own identity, often allowing others to define who
he is while also trying to navigate the ambiguity of his identity. It’s not
until the narrator grasps his invisibility that he truly recognizes its power
to live underground, and although he is finally able to define himself, he recognizes
that this involves removing himself from a society that frequently sees him as
stereotypes and tropes. Natalie, the narrator and proprietor of Yesteryear
is somewhat similar to Ellison’s Underground Man in that she recognizes that
her existence is largely defined by men and her relationship to them. However,
Burke has created a character who readers can feel both enmity and sympathy for
at the same time. I found the character of Natalie to be both frustrating and
sympathetic in that she is someone who has seemed to embrace the tradwife
lifestyle, but possibly for monetary and social mobility reasons. When the
novel begins, we meet Natalie on her ranch, Yesteryear, amidst a whirlwind of
activity, work, and children. She’s a kind of woman entrepreneur whose managed
to build her brand on social media, yet she’s also done this both by using her
family and in spite of her family, gradually fraying her relationship with her
oldest daughter, Clementine (there are some interesting old-fashioned names,
and so much of this book seems to be poking fun or at least winking at some of
these trends).
Although Natalie appears to be in control, managing her
family, her marriage and a successful business, she’s dealing with online
haters, who she calls the Angry Women, and the recent resignation of her social
media producer/assistant. As Natalie contemplates the potential fallout of this
resignation from her team of women and what it might mean for her brand, her
ranch, and her family, she awakens to find herself in Yesteryear, but it’s much
darker, drab, and her family is completely different. Natalie keeps making
reference to her family who isn’t her family. Her husband, Caleb, is now Old
Caleb, who no longer resembles the younger, hunky scion of a political dynasty.
Her daughters, Mary and Maeve, look like Natalie, but also don’t look like her daughters
from the present- Clementine, Junebug, and Jessa. Similarly, her sons, Abel and
Noah, look like her, but not like her other sons Samuel and Stetson. Something
is off in this Yesteryear, and Natalie eventually realizes that she has
awakened in 1805, not 2025.
I loved the way Burke alternates the chapters between
Natalie’s past and the historical past. It’s this kind of alternating
perspectives that I felt more sympathetic for Natalie, a smart and ambitious
young woman who is also subject to rigid gender norms and expectations to
women. Natalie grows up without her father with some ambiguity about whether he’s
actually deceased or not. Natalie realizes that her father never really died,
but her mother invented this story about his death to never really confront the
reality of their failed marriage. Like many of these myths, Natalie both
accepts and rejects it, never really acknowledging her father. The absence of a
father makes her mother work harder, developing her own business while raising
two daughters in Idaho. Natalie earns a spot at Harvard, where she meets Caleb
Mills, the youngest son of a CA senator and presidential candidate. It’s at
Harvard where Natalie’s rigidity in gender roles sets in; however, again Burke
presents a kind of sympathetic situation where Natalie struggles to fit in with
many of the other young women, and as a result rejects their ways and latches
on to the traditional and conservative ways from her home. I think that there’s
a lot to relate to in this situation, especially the challenges of finding an
identity in college when there aren’t many opportunities to explore or navigate
one’s identity. Natalie seems to have had her identity foreclosed at home, and
when faced with threats and differences in behaviors at Harvard, she reaches
out for what is familiar and comfortable to her. It’s also when she meets
Caleb, and immediately recognizes that he’s either her soulmate or her ticket
to a more lucrative and meaningful life as the wife of a senator’s son. It serves
as the opposite of the life she imagines living as a poor, struggling career
woman in a big city, forsaking the joys of marriage and motherhood to climb the
corporate ladder of success. It’s this kind of binary thinking that makes
Natalie reject the path she sees other young women, like her roommate Reena,
pursue, and why Natalie ultimately chooses the life of tradwife over finishing
her degree and seeking out her own career and identity. For Natalie, there’s no
in-between or no negotiation in these life objectives, which seems to be part
of her downfall. I recognize that women have these decisions to make about
careers, motherhood, and marriage, but Natalie seems to hold the path of career
woman in such scorn that she does not see this as a way forward for her.
Unfortunately for Natalie, Caleb’s not much of a worker
either, and after getting married and pregnant, the book takes a more humorous
turn as Natalie begins to have some buyer’s remorse about her husband, failing
to recognize that he’s not very ambitious and not very smart. In fact, Caleb’s
parents mention that he’d be a great politician some day since that’s a field
where people don’t need to think too much. I found that after marriage, when
Natalie finds out who Caleb really is, the book becomes much more satirical and
scathing. There’s hints of it when we learn about Natalie’s hidden pesticides
at the ranch or the secret trips to Target for her girls, but it’s Caleb’s
complete lack of ambition and his susceptibility to online conspiracy theories
that makes him such a hilarious and sadly true to life character. As Natalie
plots out a life by negotiating money for the ranch from her father-in-law,
Caleb seems to get dumber and dumber throughout the book, relying on chat
boards and online communities to learn about how to be a farmer, and eventually
causing the deaths of numerous cows and other farm animals. In fact, Natalie’s
world is filled with other interesting characters, including her mother-in-law
Amelia, who has resigned herself to a life of tranquilizers and pudding, and
her father-in-law Doug, whose political campaigns eventually take a dark turn
with the promise of a coming Civil War.
Meanwhile, as we learn more about how Natalie came to develop her own brand and massive online following as a tradwife, Burke intercuts these chapters with the current Natalie struggling as an actual wife and mother in 1805. Although much darker, Natalie’s challenges to adapt to this traditional life enables her to possibly question her decisions and choices in life, as well as her reasons for monetizing her family and lifestyle on social media. She realizes the challenges of baking, cooking, and rearing a family without the extended support of a team of nannies and producers. She attempts to escape, but her new family shares their limited knowledge about the savages and vast wilderness surrounding their land. In one attempt at escape, Natalie is caught in a beartrap, causing a nasty wound that her daughter needs to primitively stitch. In another attempt at confronting the absurdity of her situation, Old Caleb slaps Natalie, shocking her into the reality of submitting to patriarchy. Although Natalie struggles with these traditional roles, including the baking, housework, and chores, she attempts to make the lives of her children, especially Maeve, more enjoyable by naming the farm animals, spending time among the chickens, picking wildflowers, and creating sock puppets. It’s these moments that Natalie tried to manufacture and capture for her followers rather than taking the time to authentically enjoy them and bring joy to her children. Again, I think that these moments of play and joy amidst the drab drudgery of the early 1800s show how complex Natalie is, and that she is capable of reaching out to others, even if it is also because she herself is completely bored and desperate for escape.
Meanwhile, as we learn more about how Natalie came to develop her own brand and massive online following as a tradwife, Burke intercuts these chapters with the current Natalie struggling as an actual wife and mother in 1805. Although much darker, Natalie’s challenges to adapt to this traditional life enables her to possibly question her decisions and choices in life, as well as her reasons for monetizing her family and lifestyle on social media. She realizes the challenges of baking, cooking, and rearing a family without the extended support of a team of nannies and producers. She attempts to escape, but her new family shares their limited knowledge about the savages and vast wilderness surrounding their land. In one attempt at escape, Natalie is caught in a beartrap, causing a nasty wound that her daughter needs to primitively stitch. In another attempt at confronting the absurdity of her situation, Old Caleb slaps Natalie, shocking her into the reality of submitting to patriarchy. Although Natalie struggles with these traditional roles, including the baking, housework, and chores, she attempts to make the lives of her children, especially Maeve, more enjoyable by naming the farm animals, spending time among the chickens, picking wildflowers, and creating sock puppets. It’s these moments that Natalie tried to manufacture and capture for her followers rather than taking the time to authentically enjoy them and bring joy to her children. Again, I think that these moments of play and joy amidst the drab drudgery of the early 1800s show how complex Natalie is, and that she is capable of reaching out to others, even if it is also because she herself is completely bored and desperate for escape.
I also loved how these alternating chapters build tension to
learning more about how Natalie’s brand is built up, while her life on the 1805
Yesteryear ranch drags on, leaving readers wondering whether she will escape or
even survive. This kind of alternating narrative kept me reading, wanting to
learn more about Natalie’s life. We see how she eventually learns to develop a
following, with a little help from some online influencer courses (which again
are scathing in their satire), and how in many ways this social media life
allows Natalie to construct the identity and family that she always wished for.
We also learn how this constant push to always be online and making content
impacts her family and her own sense of self, as a woman, as a wife, and as a
mother. I’m not going to reveal the ending, but I’m curious to read more about reactions
to the ending. I found it to be surprising, yet also revelatory and hilarious,
while also maintaining the darkness of the book. Yesteryear is a timely
and scathing book, sharp in its criticisms, but also with a sense of foreboding
and sorrow. Caro Claire Burke has written a complex character who wrestles with
her identity and sense of self amidst the culture wars that are currently
raging online. While Natalie doesn’t really seem to learn or progress, readers
have the opportunity to learn more about her and see how both society and social
media end up limiting her opportunities and her identity. It’s a fascinating book
that really challenged my thinking, but also made me laugh a lot, and in some
ways fear for my daughter. Highly recommended!
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