Rating: ***
Tags: Fiction, General, Domestic Fiction, Female Friendship, Humorous, Book clubs (Discussion groups), Minnesota, Housewives, Lang:en
Summary
Five friends live through three decades of marriages, child
raising, neighborhood parties, bad husbands and good
brownies-and Landvik (Patty Jane's House of Curl) doesn't miss
a single cliche as she chronicles their lives in this pleasant
but wholly familiar novel of female bonding. When Faith Owens's
husband is transferred from Texas to the "stupid godforsaken
frozen tundra" of Freesia Court, Minn., in 1968, her life looks
like it's going to be one dull, snowy slog-until the power goes
out one evening and a group of what appear to be madwomen start
a snowball fight in her backyard. These dervishes turn out to
be her neighbors: antiwar activist Slip; sexpot Audrey;
painfully shy Merit; and widow Kari. They become fast friends
and decide to escape their humdrum routine by starting the
Freesia Court Book Club, later given the eponymous name by one
of their disgruntled husbands. As the years pass, Audrey and
Merit get divorced, Kari adopts her niece's illegitimate baby,
all five of the women find work outside their homes and they
even smoke a joint together. Their personal dramas are
regularly punctuated by reflections on political milestones
("First Martin Luther King, Jr., then Bobby Kennedy. As if we
didn't have enough to worry about with this stupid war...").
While some scenes are touching and genuinely funny, readers of
Fannie Flagg, Rita Mae Brown, Rebecca Wells and many imitators
will feel that they've seen this before.
At the heart of this new work from the popular Landvik
(Welcome to the Great Mysterious) is the Freesia Court Book
Club, whose five women members go through a lot together.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library Journal
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.