Polite Calamities by Jennifer Gold

 

My thoughts

I've read two other books by this author and hope to read the third also. 

This book is very good. Very telling in ways too. Telling in that the setting is in the sixties and the pressure on women to be perfect. Or to develop their own skin and be tough. Be themselves. Be the person they are meant to be. Truly meant to be. Perfection is so overrated. 

Two women would could not possibly be more different from each other. One born into riches. Taught her whole life to be perfect. To marry a rich man. Have children. Never complain. Yes, be or pretend to be, PERFECT. That is the life June has always known. Always had. Until she didn't. Then there is Winifred. Winifred married a man for love. He was very rich and possibly could not have children. Winifred didn't marry him for his money or social standing. She truly loved him and he truly loved her. 

June and Winifred had two very different lifestyles. Two different lives. June's husband was a cheat. He was one that thought she was to do what he said and never question him. But he also wanted a divorce. He wanted their child. He was a jerk. But to be fair she was a horrible person. Not kind to others. She saw kindness as a weakness. I think they made the perfect pair for the most part. I felt for their little girl though. 

Winifred lost her husband. He had a fatal heart attack at their end of summer party. She was devastated. This happened and the high society women who were already being cruel took it as a weakness. Was she really not suppose to grieve the loss of her beloved husband. Oh that's right they said she only married him for money. That she somehow tricked him. Winifred was a free thinking and very good woman. She befriended Marie who was an artist and living in her car. She took her in and gave her a place to paint. Of course the nosy women all had something to say about that too. June especially. She was rather cruel with her words. 

Now this sounds like a mean story but it's not. It just has some mean women in it. Back in that day it seems that women were not true friends. If one was to get divorced then they shunned her. Made her feel beneath them. Like it was all her fault. Men could do no wrong. Just look the other way. At any and all costs keep your marriage. 

This story deals with some other things too. Like horrible painful cramping that the drs seem to think it all in the woman's head. Things have changed in that respect. At least for now. Being a wife and mother. Being perfect. Looking good always. Knowing your place and staying there. 

This was a good book with a good story. Friendships. True friendships. While June didn't really have any true friends she wasn't a true friend either. She hated Winifred for having a friend. For being able to be herself. For knowing about what June's husband was doing. She didn't think about being her friend. Winifred was not good enough for the rich women even after she was left so much money from her husband. She just wasn't one of them. Thank goodness...

Thank you #NetGalley, #LakeUnionPublishers for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

Five big stars. It's great. 

About

In a hazy 1960s Rhode Island summer, three disparate lives converge and combust in this riveting story of the empowerment women find in friendship, solidarity, and rage, from the author of Halfway to You.

Winifred is blunt, opinionated, and outrageously colorful. In a community that demands domesticity, she simply doesn’t fit. When her wealthy husband suddenly dies, Winifred’s fellow society housewives no longer have a reason to play nice. Cast out entirely, Winifred throws roaring parties for the clerks and waiters that serve the town, finding the connections she’s been craving—and upsetting the gentle balance of her elite neighborhood in the process.

Flailing artist Marie wants to paint over her past before the painful memories consume her. On the brink of making a longtime dream come true, her newfound friendship with Winifred might be the key to finally moving forward—or her undoing.

High-society housewife June weathers a chronic pain that would make other women faint. With her veneer crumbling, she has no patience for the free spirit shaking up her community. Filled with a mixture of obsessive hatred and fascination for the outcast, June’s determined to destroy Winifred and return her life to the way it used to be.

When slow-simmering summer secrets and resentments finally reach the boiling point, everyone is at risk of being burned. Polite Calamities explores what “community” really means when societal survival is at stake, and what happens when women decide it’s time to stop behaving and start living.