The Girlfriends' Club

Publishers Weekly

In a tradition familiar to readers of women's novels, four women, best friends through four decades, make up what one of the friends dubs the Girlfriends' Club. As a lovable first-grader destined to be a cheerleader, Mary Sue felt sorry for Dixie (who wore glasses and orthopedic shoes), and enlisted her, along with Gretchen (taller than the boys so they called her The Monster ) and Pamela, who had a retarded brother. Popular novelist Wall (If Love Were All; Blood Sisters) begins her latest at a Kansas lakeside cottage where the girls frequently meet to celebrate marriages and births, mourn losses by death or divorce, or share anxieties. Mary Sue faces a mastectomy the next morning, on her 45th birthday. She is asleep when a shocking event occurs, and her friends decide to keep it secret from her. In due course, Mary Sue commences chemotherapy while a series of flashbacks hint at how the others, in the light of past decisions, are likely to deal with their agreed-upon silence. Pamela, the only one still married, is constantly fearful of upsetting her demanding husband, presently slated for a judgeship. Gretchen, still handsome and athletic, hated all men when her spouse dumped her, but her loneliness is so distressing that she signs up with a dating service. Dixie's divorce was not bitter, and when she and her son encounter a robust vintner on a trip to Tuscany, she begins a relationship despite the fact that he supports a wife and daughter elsewhere. Each of the four women confronts her own demons, as well as those faced by all women of a certain age, with distinctive courage and the will to persevere. The neat twist that ends this suspenseful, highly readable tale is appropriate, credible and satisfying. Agent, Philippa Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Is middle age really that bad? On the eve of Mary Sue's 45th birthday, four women who have been friends since childhood try to answer that question as they gather at a lakeside cabin to celebrate. Mary Sue is going in for a mastectomy in the morning. Gretchen, after years of dealing with her philandering husband, is torn apart by anger at his leaving. Pamela has made many personal sacrifices for her older husband in order to not become an "old maid." The divorced Dixie is the only friend comfortable with her life, but she also has the pleasure of a secret love in Italy. But after Mary Sue goes to bed, her drunk and arrogant boyfriend shows up looking for a fight. When he gets into a shouting match with the three women, he stumbles, falls, and breaks his neck. Dixie, Pamela, and Gretchen cover up his death and spend the next year covering their tracks. With this new work, Wall (My Mother's Daughter) has created four entertaining female characters. They are all trying to find their niche in the world, and it isn't until they give up looking for a man to save them that they realize they have what it takes to make their own lives full and happy. An enjoyable read for a lazy weekend. Marianne Fitzgerald, P.L. of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Four doormats complain about all the feet. Childhood friends Gretchen, Mary Sue, Pamela, and Dixie are still there for each other decades later, undaunted by disappointment and divorce. Now that saintly Mary Sue has been diagnosed with breast cancer, her friends gather for a final lakeside night together before her mastectomy. She's gone off to cry herself to sleep when up pops Walter Lambley, Mary Sue's loathsome boyfriend. He's raging drunk and waving a videotape, apparently of himself and Mary Sue having sex, and announces he won't want her anymore after such disfiguring surgery. Her loyal friends, appalled, try to take the video away from him, whereupon Walter falls, breaks his neck on a big rock in the ensuing scuffle, and dies instantly. Gretchen, Pamela, and Dixie summon up the courage to drag his corpse to his Porsche and send it sailing into the lake. No one's the wiser as the foursome resume their endless kvetching about the men in their lives. Embittered Gretchen never got over her college rape and has never liked sex. She's divorcing her unfaithful husband. Pamela is trapped in a loveless, childless marriage to a domineering old man and still pines for her first love, a self-absorbed writer. Dixie and her erstwhile soulmate simply drifted apart over the years and she's now having a secret affair with a married Italian peasant (he actually lives in Italy, which makes it an easy secret to keep). Mary Sue's doctor-husband ditched her for a tennis-playing socialite, but she has to have a man in her life, hence the need for Walter. A subplot of sorts unfolds as the girlfriends search for other sex videotapes and encounter a mysterious stranger in Walter's house. Now, who could itbe? And who really cares? Glum, predictable soap opera with a standard twist or two.