THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS
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Fellow
Author reviews
"This generous and inventive book is a delight to read, an
evocation of the power of friendship to sustain, encourage, and embolden
us. Join the sisterhood!"
- Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club
"I read The Wednesday Sisters in one delicious gulp. With a
smart, entrancing voice, Meg Waite Clayton sweeps us into the world of
the tumultuous 1960’s and beyond, and gives us the gift of five young
women coming into their own as friends, mothers, wives and writers. The
Wednesday Sisters takes their writing group as its core, and up
until the last page, I found myself fervently rooting for each of them
as if they were my friends too.??Lalita Tademy, author of Red
River and Cane River
“Long before there were book clubs and play dates, there were the
Wednesday Sisters–a group of women whose shared love of literature
transports them above the pains and pitfalls of ordinary life. While
these women may seem like typical suburban housewives, each character
has an intriguing secret and a rich interior life that drew me into the
story and held me there. This remarkable group of women demonstrates
that no matter what period of history in which we live, no matter what
race, creed or class we are, no matter what pains we endure, our one
unifying salvation can be books. And this book reminded me of why I love
to read." - Lolly Winston, author of Good Grief and Happiness
Sold Separately
I simply could not put down The Wednesday Sisters. I gave
my heart to Meg Clayton's vivid characters, and I read their intertwined
stories breathlessly. Move over, Ya-ya sisters! - Amanda Eyre
Ward, author of Forgive Me and How to be Lost
"Meg Waite Clayton gives us a group of spunky women–mostly young,
married mothers–who make the unlikely decision in 1967 to form a
writers?group. Their diverse journeys over the next years in their
writing and in their lives add up to a compelling and deeply moving
testament to the power of women’s friendships. I simply
couldn’t put The Wednesday Sisters down until I’d turned the last
page."
- Ellen Baker, author of Keeping the House
"Richly intelligent, deeply felt and incandescently original,
Clayton's book is a rhapsodic story of female friendship, set against
wildly changing times and mores. Not only is the book heartbreaking,
funny, and undeniably smart, but truly, this is the kind of book you
don't just want to pass on to all your friends. You have
to." - Caroline Leavitt, author of Girls in Trouble
and Coming Back to Me
From the Publisher
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.
For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met
every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California.
Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young
homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has
enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These “Wednesday Sisters?
seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from
Chicago, 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 they are bonded by a shared love of both 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 for the moon, and a women’s movement that
challenges everything they have ever thought 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.
Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book
lovers that earns a place among those popular works that honor the
joyful, mysterious, unbreakable bonds between friends.