On My Nightstand - The Wednesday Sisters

The Wednesday Sisters – By Meg Waite Clayton

On the back cover:

Friendship, Loyalty, and Love lie at the heart of Meg Waite Clayton’s beautifully written, poignant, and sweeping novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family.

In the late 1960’s, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett and Ally find themselves meeting every Wednesday at the park in Palo Alto, California.  Defined at first mainly by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love.  These “Wednesday Sisters” otherwise seem to have little in common, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts.  But the women are bonded by a shared love of literature – Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens – and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year.

As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers’ circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and eventually, books.  Along the way, they experience history in the making – Vietnam, the race to put a man on the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they have ever though about themselves – while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success.

My thoughts:
I thought this book was only okay.  Not terrible, but by no means great.

I found it frustrating how the author (Clayton) would spend so much time on one specific event in time (like the Walking on the Moon) and so little time on other things.  This story only seemed to skim the surface of these woman’s lives.  It almost felt like a glossed over story, yes there were parts that difficult aspects of their lives, but it did not feel real.  They seems to have unlimited amounts of energy to be able to stay up all night writing and then still deal with their kids during the day.  If I did that – I would have a very horrible day with my kids the next day and not like myself.

My ratings: 2.5 out of 5.