Title: Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel
Book Beginning/First Line Friday blurb, p. 1:
Friday56 blurb, p. 33 last page of sample:
Summary: Pepper Mills is 77 when her adult children encourage (force) her to move into the Vista View Retirement in Austin, Texas and to give up her driver's license. She doesn't expect it, but she finds that she makes new friends and falls in love. Then she starts feeling sick, exhausted, and confused. Pepper worries that she has something very serious like a brain tumor. But when she goes to the doctor she finds she does have something serious... and inexplicable... she's pregnant. How can that be?
Review: In the book's blurb the publisher sums up the book this way:
Enormous Wings is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It’s about what happens when you don’t get to choose anymore.
OMG. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this book. Pepper Mills, a retired English teacher is my kind of gal. She is long divorced, happily so, and enjoys her independent life. When she moves into Vista View she is not thinking about love and yet it happens. Then she is not thinking about pregnancy. What 77-year-old would? But now that it has happened she is suddenly confronted with the laws in Texas which make getting an abortion a crime, even if the person getting the abortion is 77 and a pregnancy may very well kill her.
The lack of consideration for personal choices and the morality and mortality issues involved all make this book very complex and thought-provoking. Yet, the dialogue and the characters are all filled with charm and humor. Heavy topics with a light touch. I think the book would make a great book club, for sure.
Lest you think I am giving away spoilers, I haven't told you anything you can't find on the book's blurb by the publisher. I guess the surprises aren't in the physical details but in the conversations and relationships with the characters.
I was attracted to the book initially because I am a Laurie Frankel fan, in fact I've met her. She wrote a fantastic book, This Is How It Always Is, about a family with a trans kid which was the first time I'd read anything on the topic. I found it eye opening. I was also attracted to the book because my siblings and I just finished helping our mother move into a retirement apartment. She has since given up her driver's license. I felt like I could relate to Pepper's dilemma about moving and making new friends because I've seen it happen with my mom. Even though I had read the blurb, I wasn't really prepared for the emotional impact the other main theme of the book would hit me. Egads, why are non-doctors making decisions about laws which affect so many people and then treat them as if every situation is the same? Women everywhere should be fighting for their rights to personal autonomy and for making decisions about their own health.
I tell you what -- this book really got me going!!! I just bought a copy for my sister. Can't wait to talk to her about it.
My rating: 5 stars.
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