“Good answer,” said Slip, her eyes half closed. “But I mean soon, as in do you think I’m on my deathbed?”
“I . . . I don’t know, Slip. I’m not a doctor.”
“You are crafty with your answers, Faith. But if you were a doctor, you know what I would tell you?”
I shook my head.
“I’d tell you that you don’t know everything. I’m going to surprise everybody.” She waved her hand weakly. “Not only am I going to walk out of here, I’m going to walk on my hands out of here.” A scowl creased her forehead. “I’ve got kids to see married, grandchildren to see born!”
She barely moved, but it seemed to me exhaustion pushed her back into her pillow. Her eyes were closed, and I assumed sleep had once again overtaken her, but then she said, “Still haven’t heard anything from your sister?”
When I heard the words “your sister,” tears sprang to my eyes. I barely spoke of Vivien anymore, so hurt was I at her rejection.
“No.”
“Do you think you ever will?”
My heart thumped again. “I . . . I have to. Some way or another, I have to figure out how to get her into my life.”
The shadow smile appeared again on Slip’s face.
“Good old Faithy. Just like me—you never give up.” She leaned forward, as if given a sudden injection of adrenaline. “And why should we? Why shouldn’t the story end the way we want it to? I always hated when a book had a lousy ending. I’m gonna make damn sure my own life doesn’t.”
Her cackle turned into a cough.
“Slip,” I said, taking her hand. “Don’t. Don’t wear yourself out like that.”
She nodded, and I sat holding her claw hand until her breath evened out and she fell back asleep. One of the monitors clicked and another made a sound like an amplified gulp.
Shivering, I buttoned up my cardigan, feeling that panic was a thing ready to jump into my lap and that if I let it, I wouldn’t be able to stop screaming.
Turning back to my photographs, I picked one up with shaking fingers.
It was the one of us posed with the bearded biker, and in a second the panic was batted away, far across the room.
I opened the acid-free (posterity demanded it) pages of the scrapbook and nestled the snapshot into those little corner thingies. Staring at the picture and into the past it represented, I finally put my pen to paper.
The Angry Housewives tame a Hell’s Angel, I wrote. Next stop: world domination. I laughed, even though I was a breath away from bursting into tears. I looked at Slip, but my valiant, true friend did not stir, and I stared at the photograph for a moment more before adding, We’re still working on that one.
© Jennifer Bong
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LORNA LANDVIK is the bestselling author of Patty Jane’s House of Curl, Your Oasis on Flame Lake, The Tall Pine Polka, and Welcome to the Great Mysterious. She is also an actor, playwright, and proud soccer mom.
BY LORNA LANDVIK
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
Welcome to the Great Mysterious
The Tall Pine Polka
Your Oasis on Flame Lake
Patty Jane’s House of Curl
More praise for Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
“Honesty, humor, and profound emotion . . . are the hallmarks of the book. Told alternately from each woman’s perspective, and ranging in time from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, Landvik accurately captures the thinking, the culture, and the feeling of each decade. . . . [She] treats her characters, whose stories drive the novel, with the same warmth and love with which they regard each other. . . . For anyone who has connected with another person on any emotional level, this appealing novel provides the special comfort of recognition.”
—BookStreet USA
“[A] delicious novel . . . If you love . . . Fannie Flagg, Lee Smith, Adriana Trigiani—you will love this. It’s a buddy book, a story of women sharing friendship, love, loss, and laughter.”
—Millbrook Round Table (NY)
“Readers might feel a twinge of sadness and loss as they turn the last page of Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons—finishing this book is like leaving five dear friends.”
—BookPage
“Witty and wise . . . Landvik’s ladies endure the best and worst of times together (and recommend some great reads along the way).”
—Booklist
ANGRY HOUSEWIVES
EATING BON BONS
A Reader’s Guide
LORNA LANDVIK
A CONVERSATION WITH LORNA LANDVIK
Q: As Merit asked Flannery, where do you get your inspiration?
A: Sometimes, like Flannery, I find inspiration everywhere—from a billboard, a snatch of music, a scent. Other times, I have no idea where it comes from: all of a sudden, a character appears unbidden in my head, with the urgent desire that I write about her or him.
Q: How did a book club end up at the center of the novel?
A: After the publication of my first novel, I got invited to speak at a book club and since then I’ve been to dozens and dozens. What always impresses me is the fun and friendship of these groups, some of which have been together for decades, and that’s why I decided to write about one.
Q: In your acknowledgments you mention your visits to other book clubs and your own book club. How did these experiences influence your writing?
A: Other than inspiring me to write about a book club, my visits to book clubs have given me the opportunity to hear firsthand what readers think about my books. Hearing “I laughed, I cried” is a big impetus to me to make sure the next book I write has characters that readers will relate to, that ultimately can make them laugh and cry. As far as my own book club is concerned, I have learned how subjective each reader’s viewpoint is. A book that might move one of us may leave another cold, and yet we all share the belief that good characters are absolutely necessary to a good book and that again enforces in my own writing the need to write believable and compelling characters.
Q: What is it like to be the guest author at a book club? What was your best experience? And worst?
A: It’s a lot of fun. Most book clubs I go to have the right formula down pat—good conversation, good food, and plenty of wine. It’s fun to have my books discussed and hear about themes and character motivations I may never have intended, fun to hear about characters of mine who’ve reminded a reader of a sister or best friend, etc. I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed all my book club visits and not one stands out as the best (although the bigger the food selection, the happier I am). One club discussing Patty Jane’s House of Curl had a cake decorated with characters from that book; I’ve been to several clubs where the members will dress like characters from one of my books. During one meeting, while discussing Your Oasis on Flame Lake, a book club member got to her feet and, pointing a finger at me, shouted, “You make infidelity look good!” That was a little disconcerting, but the vivid argument that ensued among the members wasn’t a bad experience, but an interesting one.
Q: Do your readers ever surprise you with their insights into your work?
A: All the time. They enlighten me as to why a character acts the way she does, what my books’ themes are, hidden meanings. . . . I love it!
Q: If you could invite any author, living or dead, to your book club, who would it be?
A: Oh, boy, I get to pick one? Probably Shakespeare. I’d want to know not only how he wrote so beautifully, but how he wrote so much and was anybody helping him?
Q: You describe Slip’s daughter Flannery as a “tattletale” and “tabloid reporter.” Since she is the character who becomes a published writer, is this part of the job description?
A: I think it was for me. As kids, my brothers got after me all the time for being a tattletale, whereas I just thought I was telling the whole story.
Q: What is Flannery’s novel Winter Gardens about?
A: I don’t know, I haven’t read it.
Q: The stor
y of the social movements of the l960s and early l970s is often told from the vantage point of the radicalized youth of the period. Why did you decide to examine the impact of this upheaval from the vantage point of Freesia Court, an upper-middle-class neighborhood of young families?
A: Whatever our age or place in society is, we’re still affected by the times we live in. While the women in the book aren’t living in Haight Ashbury or getting arrested at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, they still feel deeply about what is going on. Slip, of course, chooses to act on her convictions, giving weight to my conviction that, ultimately, mothers are the most radical faction of all.
Q: When a young man mistakes the Angry Housewives for sisters, Audrey is offended. She feels he just thinks “every woman over the age of fifty looks alike.” Is this the only explanation for his gaffe?
A: I think he was responding to their familiarity and closeness with one another and he assumed they were related because of it.
Q: Audrey is described as someone who “refused to ask permission for the privilege of being herself.” Do you think this description applies to all the Angry Housewives by the end of your novel?
A: I never thought of it, but yes, I’d say so. Getting older is so culturally and cosmetically incorrect, but I think the older women get, the more their true selves emerge.
Q: You write that “Faith had the sharp eyes of someone who always had to figure out where she fit in, and the quick impressions she had of people were nearly always accurate.” How and when did Faith’s sharp eyes fail her?
A: For a good part of her life, Faith couldn’t see the value of her own true self.
Q: Did you always know Audrey—not the obvious choice—would be the Angry Housewife to break through Faith’s defenses?
A: Not until I got to that part. My characters are always surprising me—which one chooses to do what, and how. I don’t plot out the story and so I don’t know what’s going to happen until I get there.
Q: Do you agree that Faith, Merit, and Kari kept their secrets, among other reasons, to preserve an ideal of upper-middle-class respectability, while Audrey’s wealth and Slip’s political convictions allowed those two to avoid that particular trap?
A: I think respectability to Faith was all-important because she hadn’t had any growing up. As for Merit and Kari, I don’t think the need to appear a certain accepted way was their motivation for keeping their secrets. Merit’s was outright fear, and Kari made an agreement with her niece not to reveal their secret. More than their wealth and political convictions, I think it was the strength of Audrey’s and Slip’s personalities that gave them the confidence to be themselves.
Q: Kari waited until her brother and sister-in-law had died to tell Julia the truth about her birth mother. Was this fair?
A: Probably not, but Kari’s first priority was protecting her daughter and her daughter’s biological mother.
Q: We don’t learn how the rest of Kari’s family reacted to this news. What happened?
A: I honestly don’t know that they were ever told.
Q: Slip hopes the nation will be ready for a woman president when her daughter grows up. Do you think that time has come?
A: Yes! Not only do I think we’re ready for a woman president, I think the world is ready for a majority of women leaders. What the world definitely doesn’t need at this point in time is more testosterone—what we need is a lot more estrogen!
Q: Will Faith’s sister ever come around?
A: I would bet that Faith will persist until she does.
Q: Did you research this novel?
A: In that I have visited many book clubs and heard their stories, yes. I also looked back to see what books were being read in certain years.
Q: Which aspect of writing this novel gave you the biggest headache?
A: I knew different characters wanted to tell their stories in different ways (some speak in the first person, others in the third); what helped corral all of this was when I figured out each chapter heading—the book they had chosen for discussion and why.
Q: Which books would make your greatest-hits list?
A: A short list would include To Kill a Mockingbird, Handling Sin (both of which are selections in the book), Huckleberry Finn, Great Expectations, and maybe a book I have great affection for, the Dick and Jane books, because they were the books that taught me how to read.
Q: What is your average workday like?
A: I like to work every day, but that doesn’t mean I do. During the school year, I usually take a walk in the morning, come home, make a latte, and read the papers, and then I try to settle down and work. But I don’t stick to a regular schedule—if I have something really important going on in the day (a lunch date, a movie), I’ll work later in the afternoon or at night. My family’s very accommodating and I’ve also learned to write among them, amid distraction.
Q: What do you do when the words won’t come?
A: I get up, find the chocolate, and if that doesn’t help, I might read and see if someone else’s ability to tell a story can help fire up mine.
Q: Are you working on a new project?
A: Yes. Once I finish a book another one’s usually right there, ready to be written.
READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. During the sixties and seventies, the Angry Housewives smoked cigarettes and threw back highballs even while pregnant without knowledge of the harm it could do. If they could have glimpsed their futures then, what do you think would have surprised them most about their future selves? What is one thing you know now that you would have really appreciated being aware of ten years ago?
2. Discuss Faith’s letters to her deceased mother. What kind of catharsis do they provide Faith, and how do the tone and nature of the letters change as the years go by?
3. Kari faces a critical decision when Mary Jo forbids her from telling Anders that the baby is his grandchild. Would you be able to keep such a secret? For which character is this secret most constructive? For which is it most destructive?
4. Slip and Audrey allow a conflict between their children to seriously harm their friendship for a short time. If you ever had the desire to openly criticize a friend because of the way he or she raised a child, would you do so? How does Landvik’s portrayal of differing parenting techniques and the children they produce function as social commentary within the novel?
5. What do you think caused Faith to (almost absentmindedly) bring Audrey to Trilby? How did confronting Beau’s sexuality help Faith have the strength to confront the reality of her own past?
6. Merit attributes her quiet acts of rebellion—trash rolled up furtively in her hair, choosing only banned books for AHEB meetings—to her maintenance of sanity during her years of marriage. What do you make of these coping methods? How do they compare to the methods of the other women in AHEB? Discuss your own strategies for staying lucid and balanced when confronted with situations that can seem unbearable.
7. Slip is described throughout the book as the strongest—physically—of the Angry Housewives, in addition to her dynamic will and stalwart convictions. What emotions are stirred when someone who is perceived as invincible suddenly becomes critically ill? How does she continue to display conviction and energy? Do you think she will prevail?
8. Audrey says she believes in luck and God acting in tandem. What events in her life do you think contributed to this belief? How much weight do you give this sentiment regarding your own life? Do you think people tend to attribute life’s painful events more to luck or to God? What about the joyous events?
9. This book covers a lot of ground, both personal and political. What do you think is the most important lesson these women learn over thirty years? Which characters were most ripe for change with the political and cultural tide? Whose story did you think most embodied the emergence of women as a growing force outside the home?
10. In order to attain a greater understanding of hersel
f, Faith uses therapy, learns from her friendships, and culls inspiration from books. How do these three supplement one another as means of self-discovery? Which books and authors have inspired you most through the years?
11. What did you think of Merit’s idea to unite mothers around the world to stop war and halt violence? Were you surprised that this notion came from her?
12. Slip tells Merit that redubbing their book club “Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons” would be taking their husbands’ words and giving them and their chauvinism the finger. What other subversive techniques do the women use to show contempt for chauvinism? Do you feel it’s an apt name for the club and all it turns out to be?
13. Which character was your favorite? Was she or he the one you identified with most?
14. A number of the characters in the book harbor secrets. What does secret-keeping do to characters like Faith and Fred, who fear their actual secrets, as opposed to Kari or Beau, who fear the reactions of others?
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.