Product Description

Filled with warmth, wit and wisdom, The Future Homemakers of America takes us to the heart of female friendship. A novel fans of DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD will not be able to resist. Norfolk,1953. The Fens have never seen anything quite like the girls from USAF Drampton. Overpaid, overfed and over here. While their men patrol the skies keeping the Soviets at bay, some are content to live the life of the Future Homemakers of America -- clipping coupons, cooking chicken pot pie -- but other start to stray, looking for a little native excitement beyond the perimeter fence. Out there in the freezing fens they meet Kath Pharaoh, a tough but warm Englishwoman. Bonds are forged, uniting the women in friendship that will survive distant postings, and the passage of forty years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139936 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Laurie Graham's much-anticipated novel The Future Homemakers of America introduces us to five American Air force wives stationed at a US airbase in the Norfolk Fens in 1953, the year of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Initially, the women have little in common, except their nationality and husbands who fly with the 68th bomber wing, but they eventually start to socialise.

It soon becomes clear, however, that all is not as it seems. Glamorous redhead Lois is bored with her lot and longs to explore life beyond the confines of the base; when she does, though, the consequences are not quite what she expected. Betty, a true organiser and the most obvious homemaker of the group, makes excellent chocolate brownies and is a wonderful mother but one wonders whether her marriage is all it seems. Her friends aren't quite sure but support her all the same. And there are other hidden dynamics too: the women dare not speak of their fears for their husbands who are warding off potential threats from the Soviets.

As the women expand their horizons, they also get to know some wary locals who live in shocking material circumstances in a grieving England barely recovered from World War II. The glamorous "yanks" befriend the down-to-earth but reticent Kath and mysterious John Pharaoh and subsequently become ministering angels as they dispense freebies and treats to their new friends. But their actions turn out to be much more than "do-gooding". The women themselves are changed by the people and events they encounter in the Norfolk countryside.

Throughout The Future Homemakers of America Graham leads us effortlessly and convincingly on as we follow the lives of the characters across time and geography. All the while, she gives us humorous and often tender insights about women living, loving and adapting--and the forging of bonds that can last a lifetime. --Christina Mcloughlin

Review
'She has wit and insight to match Nick Hornby, and the entertainment value of Helen Fielding, as well as depth. Her novel traces the lives of Peggy and five female friends - one British - from the 1950s to the present, against a background of landmark events. It amounts to a picture of the way women's lives have changed, without ever sacrificing the particular to the generalisation.' Nicolette Jones, Independent 'Superlative. The writing sparkles from first to last' David Robson, Sunday Telegraph 'This novel crackles with energy and snappy American dialogue. Laurie Graham conjures up five tough, funny, mouthy women, thrown together at an American airbase in Norfolk. Kath, a typical Brit with a chilly exterior and warm heart, is drawn into their generous circle. Graham has pulled off an absolute triumph; the voice of her sassy narrator, the redoubtable Peggy, never falters as she unfolds 40 years of friendship.' Georgia Metcalfe, Daily Mail 'Laugh-out-loud funny; intelligent; moving; has more delicious roll-off-the-tongue one-liners than Seinfeld. One of those books you buy six copies of to send to all your old friends.' Julie Morrice, Scotsman

'Overpaid, over-sexed - and over here,' growled the British troops of the American Forces arriving in the 1940s to help fight against Hitler. They could have added, 'better dressed, more glamorous, more attractive to the girls - and unencumbered...' In the 1950s it wasn't quite the same. Another batch of American Air Crews was back, but not alone, as an uneasy peace allowed them to bring their families. For the American wives and children post-war Britain, still bruised and lacking the amenities they were used to, came as a shock. They were confused by the paucity of air-conditioning, central heating, supermarkets and even cars and telephones. And, of course, the weather, at least on the East Anglian coast, was awful. Peggy (the narrator), Betty (the homebody), Gayle (later to find God), frivolous Lois and Audrey, soon to become an officer's wife, find themselves drawing defensively together. As DWs (Dependent Wives) they can't take paid employment, so made do with babysitting each other's children - or getting into mischief. Then they meet Kath, a local stoic who opens their eyes to the truth and harsh realities of rural living. But Kath, though ill-educated, is no fool. She sees the life the American girls live, even in their restricted circumstances, and her eyes open too; and the lifetime's friendship she gradually forges with Peggy, Betty, Gayle, Lois and Audrey is to affect all their futures, for good and for ill. Graham has an impeccable ear for dialogue and dialect, and an eye for the nuances of character, the complexities and disappointments of family life, the traumas of disertion, illness, death. She recognizes courage, not just in the face of danger, but in the everyday trudge through life. A story that bears the stamp of reality, told with unsentimental sympathy and warmth. (Kirkus UK)

A decades-long chronicle of friendship among five not terribly likable Americans and one Brit who meet while the Americans' pilot husbands are stationed in 1952 England. Peggy, resentful but dutiful wife of Vern and mother to Crystal, narrates with a semiliterate Texas twang that is not only irritating but indistinguishable from the voices of her friends, including Brooklyn-born Lois and midwestern Audrey. Betty, also from Texas, is the most domestic of the bunch (even though she's married to the wife-beater). Lois drinks and cheats on her dopey but sweet husband Herb. Gayle just drinks, especially after she loses not one but two husbands to military deaths. Audrey is criticized for sucking up, probably because her husband, unlike the others, actually succeeds in his ambitions. But all are amazingly dimwitted, almost caricatures of ignorant Americans, arrogant toward their British hosts. The local Norfolk woman, Kath, with whom they strike up a friendship lives in abject poverty but shows a spark the others lack. The loose plot follows the women from 1950s England to 1990s America as husbands drop out of the service and marriages flounder or dissolve. Restive Lois stays with her saintly Herb and becomes a devoted grandmother. Gayle ends up a rich TV evangelist. Audrey is widowed when her high-ranking husband chokes on a piece of meat. And Kath completely turns her life around, opening a driving school with money she receives after a flood destroys her childhood home. When her marriage fizzles, Peggy becomes a wedding planner, though her newfound and exquisite taste is hard to believe. Betty turns more complicated and more interesting than the others as her upbeat approach, annoyingly rose-colored at first, takes on a feisty dignity after she leaves her husband and struggles, with limited success, to raise her three daughters alone. British author Graham's sixth novel, but first US appearance, covers all the usual bases of matinee fiction, from abusive husbands to death by cancer, plus (minimal) sex and a smattering of recipes. (Kirkus Reviews)

David Robson, Sunday Telegraph
‘Superlative. The writing sparkles from first to last’

Customer Reviews

One of those books you are really sad to finish!
The book follows the lifelong friendship of five U.S. air-force wives: Peggy, Lois, Audrey, Betty, Gayle and their English friend Kath whom they meet when they are based in Norfolk. The story moves from post-war Britain back to the States and is peppered with the historical and social events that touched the lives of these women along the way. It has an easy to read style that is very witty and is one of the few books to which I have laughed out loud; the dog thought I'd gone mad!
However as well as making you laugh it also makes you cry and just when you begin to wonder where the book is going it devlelops into a most surprising climax, that I just didn't see coming. I loved it and would definitely recommend it to anyone!!

An acerbically funny trip down memory lane for homemakers
I was a Future Homemaker in the American Midwest. But my group never had the adventures to equal this group of American Air Force wives, stationed in the bleak Norfolk of 1951, worried about their pilot husbands, quarreling and helping each other to survive. British readers will gain rare insights into American Air Force attitudes to the natives, especially of Norfolk, the royal family, all-purpose Jello and Velveeta and how to protect the Free World. American readers will blush and laugh at the mirror held up to themselves. And everybody will long for a heroine who can make duck quack noises with her armpits. The book follows the narrator, Peggy Dewey and her friends, Audrey, red-headed Lois, Gayle,homemaker par excellence Betty and the 'native' Kath Pharoah through decades of experience and the reader shares the glow of their friendship. Highly recommended to any one who values a friend. By the way,Future Homemakers are still thriving

As they say in Norfolk - "It's a rum 'un!"
After a difficult beginning when all the characters were being introduced, I was soon hooked. Living as I do on the Suffolk/Norfolk border I recognised the bleak cold wet Fen and the earthly richness of Kath and her fellow Fen folk. As earthly as the rich earth they live amongst. Events, places, sayings - oh so apt. As a USAF (DW) wife from 1986 to 1995 I could also recognise the ever present spectre of Uncle Sam quietly disapproving of anyone putting the slightest foot wrong. We are transported from cold Fen to Texas to New York to the dizzy heights of Hunstanton and from laughter to tears and all points inbetween. It shows that with a little work friendships are for life, not just an assignment!