Below is the latest Book Stew Review from Eileen MacDougall, host of the long-running Book Stew, a video and podcast devoted to writing in all forms, authors, playwrights, and even a cat who survived a tornado and wrote a book about it.
The Girls They Write Songs About by Carlene Bauer
Rose and Charlotte start out as rival writers for a counter-culture magazine, living frantic NYC it-girl lives in 1997, but find their mirror images in each other stomping on men’s hearts, drinking too much, and fleeing their middle class childhoods and their destinies of becoming good suburban wives and mothers.
This is such a vivid recounting of their mistakes and their abilities forgive the other more than themselves, their saving the juiciest parts and most difficult questions for their best friend, all the while knowing that although their relationships with their husbands, children and lovers may last, their golden best friendship will determine most of the decisions and the rules.
Women of that era, women of this era, any woman with an exciting and scary life before marriage or career commitment will find this novel to be a pulsating gem.
QUOTE: “It takes real work for a woman to sustain the creation of something outside herself that is not a child. Men don’t walk around with a door inside them that they’ll constantly have to worry about — should I shut it or keep it open?”
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