THE BOOK CLUB FOR TROUBLESOME WOMEN by Marie Bostwick
A terrifically entertaining novel about the friendships formed by neighbours
I saw this novel as an audiobook and, with a two-day drive in front of me, thought it sounded like it might be interesting enough to maintain my attention but not so interesting to be distracting from the driving. It turns out, I was right in both assumptions, except that it was far more interesting than I had expected and I enjoyed it more than anticipated. The Book Club for Troublesome Women ended up being a fantastic read.
Set in suburban Virginia, USA in 1963, the main character, Margaret Ryan, unintentionally starts a book club with three neighbours, Charlotte, Viv and Bitsy. Unintentional because it was really an attempt to befriend her new neighbour Charlotte and a way to remove herself from the neighbourhood women’s coffee meet-up, which is best described as vapid - and Margaret knows it.
Over the course of the year, the relationships between the women grow and evolve, against the backdrop of a United States undergoing rapid social change - in the third year of the Kennedy Presidency, with Martin Luther King Jr leading the civil rights charge. The women call themselves ‘The Betty’s’ after Betty Friedan, author of their first book, the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique.
What transpires is a year where each of the women grows and changes, in no small part due to the influence they have on each other. Some of that growth seems unexpected, but not unwelcome. The novel is very much a tribute to ‘sisterhood’ (which, in real life, I swing between relying upon wholeheartedly and being heartbroken by too regularly) and is particularly important in the context of the second wave feminist movement that was really starting to get going in the early 1960s. I felt that much of it was plausible, except perhaps some of the husbands of the women. One or two of them were a little more evolved than I believe likely in 1963. There is also an important interaction with an African-American woman later in the novel which I wanted to believe was as inclusive as it was written (and maybe there were instances where that storyline plays out as described) but which I think might not have been quite so progressive. Maybe I am just cynical?
All of this said - it wasn’t so far-fetched that it bothered me, because overall I really liked the novel. I arrived home with around 90 minutes left to play, and I couldn’t wait til the next day to be home and able to listen to it out loud while my partner was at work, to see how the stories wrapped up.
I cannot pretend that I couldn’t feel the parallels - loose, but there - with Sex and the City. Four women, a close friendship group with one woman in a different age group to the others, major life changes - there are similarities. But they’re not stark - the Troublesome Women are women in the suburbs for a start. I think if you enjoyed SATC in the 1990s-2000s, this might be a novel you’ll enjoy now (minus the fornication).
I really enjoyed The Book Club for Troublesome Women and I really liked some of the trouble they got into - as Congressman John Lewis called it, Good Trouble. A great weekend or beach read and way to escape - I’m recommending this one to you.