Caro Claire Burke’s much-talked-about debut novel, YESTERYEAR, is a portrait of a tradwife influencer who suddenly is forced to live the illusion that she has maintained, but this time for real.

“My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.” Introducing herself to the reader, this is how Natalie --- a proud homesteader of Yesteryear Ranch, a toxin- and drama-free return to days of yore --- begins her story. When we meet Natalie, she is greeting the day in her perfect home, her five children eagerly devouring homemade breakfasts, her nannies and producer keeping the household running smoothly. Oh, you didn’t think Natalie ran the 500-acre ranch, schooled her kids and made love to her husband all on your own, did you?

Removing the imaginary Instagram filter from our eyes, Natalie reveals that her entire brand --- of homegrown ingredients, natural fibers and the pervasive energy of God’s love --- is an act. She has maintained this façade through rough patches in her marriage, the screaming births of her children, her father-in-law’s run for president…and now a scandal. Natalie, who speaks directly to the reader and has never so much as uttered a bad word in front of her family, is capital-A Angry.

"It’s easy to see why this remarkable novel is already being touted as the book of the year. More than that, though, it seems like an instant modern classic that will continue to inform generations of readers about this particularly peculiar moment in our shared history."

But let’s go back even further, to when Natalie was a determined, brilliant young woman raised to believe in God’s teachings and see anything else as sin. The most important lesson she learned was that, in order to fulfill her duty to God and convert nonbelievers, she must be a good wife with many children. This is the Natalie who arrives on Harvard’s campus and quickly senses that the secular world is not for her. Until she meets Caleb.

The son of a career politician, Caleb is ruddy-cheeked and bright --- a poster child for a return to a better, stronger, more unified America. And on one of their first dates, when Natalie tells him that she dreams of living on a huge, homey farm one day, she unknowingly seals their fate. A massive engagement ring comes next, followed by a wedding, a pregnancy, and her departure from Harvard. It turns out she will never earn her degree. With a promise of financial security from her wealthy father-in-law, Natalie and Caleb leave Boston behind for Idaho and their fixer-upper ranch nestled between two mountain ranges lit by endless sun.

Natalie soon starts to realize that her husband is a very stupid, lazy and flaccid man. But she has never balked at a challenge, and the Instagram account of Yesteryear Ranch is born. Within only a few short years, Natalie has racked up millions of followers and ringing endorsements from “manosphere” podcasters who believe she is the kind of woman who can fix our sin-filled, deviant country. Behind the camera, her life is a bit more relatable. The nannies keep her children busy, her producer helps her create content, and inside every cabinet and closet door lie modern products: a microwave and chemicals that keep the crops growing.

Most recently, a difficult encounter with her producer has forced Natalie to wonder if, or when, her empire will crumble and people will discover the divide between Online Natalie (a barefoot, Christian-values manic pixie dream wife) and Offline Natalie (who curses a heck of a lot more than you’d expect).

After a stressful night and the quitting of her producer, Natalie wakes up at home as always. But the expensive linens she sleeps on are gone, and all of the rustic-seeming touches they’ve added to the house --- a return to yesteryear, the captions say --- are actually rustic. Her children look like themselves, but are more like funhouse mirror images of the people she made with her own body. No longer the fumbling idiot she has come to know, Caleb is now a capital-M Man: moody, stern, brave, strong, and completely in charge of his household and family, especially his wife.

For a woman who has lived most of her adult life in the public eye, being transported to the year 1855 is jarring, but equally disturbing is her first thought: Clearly, this is a reality show, and I’m being filmed. Eventually, if I perform well enough, I will get to go back home. But is what’s waiting for her there --- the end of her life as she knows it --- worth the trip back?

In alternating chapters, Caro Claire Burke walks us through Natalie’s literal return to yesteryear. The stunning portrait she paints of her is unflinching and razor-sharp. But Natalie is not someone you want to root for, especially if you are already beginning to grow uncomfortable with the “family values” tradwife crowd and its online culture. Still, in Burke’s deft, expertly written prose, Natalie is also deeply, cunningly relatable. It’s a no-holds-barred look into the mindset, lifestyle and eventual fall of a tradwife. Burke’s takes are equal parts informed and irreverent, all the while dispelling bold, thoughtful takedowns of authenticity, consumerism and influencer culture.

It’s easy to see why this remarkable novel is already being touted as the book of the year. More than that, though, it seems like an instant modern classic that will continue to inform generations of readers about this particularly peculiar moment in our shared history. Fiercely intelligent, wickedly funny, and a searing takedown of tradwife culture, it widens the lens and examines our world in a way that allows the mind to broaden, expand and change.

When commenting on her influencer life, Natalie remarks, “The laws of social media were the same as the laws of physics, equal parts invisible and accumulative in their power.” So too are the laws of strong literature. YESTERYEAR, which I am certain will be passed on and down to many a reader, is proof of that accumulative power.