Book Buzz: Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel
“I think that we certainly talk about pregnancy and motherhood and reproductive freedoms. These are conversations that we are having, but within pretty narrow parameters. And what I liked about this idea was the opportunity to talk about some of those issues from a different lens than usual — not least because so many people’s minds are already made up about so many of these ideas, and that means that we can’t really have a conversation. But if we change the lens, if we change the approach, if we change the givens and the parameters that we go in with, then we get to have a conversation.
There’s the whole point of novels.”
― Laurie Frankel, Texas Standard
What booksellers are saying about Enormous Wings
- Never have I read a book with such a situation that is seared in my mind. Laurie Frankel is a genius to have invented a storyline that combines tears of laughter with tears for our current agony.
― Nancy, Bookmiser, Inc., Marietta, Georgia | BUY
- I cannot think of a better title for this deep, extraordinary novel – it is big and bold, thoughtful and wise. It is a powerful story of found family, female agency, growing old and staying young.
― Anderson, Page & Palette, Fairhope, Alabama| BUY
- The magic of Laurie Frankel is that she has a way of presenting all sides of hot button issues with a fairness that brings understanding, if not agreement. She can take an absurd premise–the pregnancy of 77 year old Pepper Mills–and turn it into a thoughtful story
― Amy Dance, The Snail on the Wall, Huntsville, Alabama | BUY
- Pepper Mills is a compelling and vibrant character and I was cheering for her from the start. Ingeniously, this novel manages to be lighthearted and warm while tackling topics which are serious and relevant right now.
― Shan O’Fee-Byrom, Books on Third, Naples, Florida | BUY
About Laurie Frankel
Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of the novels Family Family, One Two Three, Goodbye for Now, The Atlas of Love, and the Reese’s Book Club Pick This Is How It Always Is. Frankel lives in Seattle with her husband, daughter, and border collie. She makes good soup.
Book Buzz: Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel Read More »
I know a lot of fairy tales.
Like I cut my teeth on them. I grew up reading lots of fairy tale collections, and I realized I could only with difficulty think of fairytales where women were friends, where women talk to each other, and where they weren’t antagonists to each other in some way. I know they’re there, but the fact that I could reach for 10 stories of women waiting for rescue or women waiting to be chosen or women seeking husbands or, you know, that sort of thing instead of a story of women setting out together to have adventures—which is really what I wanted to tell my 7 year old niece who is asking me for a fairy tale— It was very disturbing to me, and I just remember in that moment thinking I’m just going to make something up. I’m gonna make something up because I really want her to know that there is room in fairytales for girls to be friends.
“There are only so many stories out there—people say seven—but for me, the question is always: what is the question I want to ask?…In Kin, the question I was interested in interrogating is the idea of searching for one’s mother. The classic story tells us, of course you search for your mother. If someone says, I don’t know where my mother is, we frame it as a brave quest to find her. But I wanted to question that impulse. Is it always better to know? Is it okay not to know? Can we learn to be satisfied with not knowing? In real life, people can be satisfied with what they have. In real life, you can marry someone who isn’t the person you once dreamed of and still have a good life. In a story, that’s often treated as an unpardonable compromise. I’m trying to bring into story life the wisdom we already know from real life.”