The Early Birds is a hymn to lifelong female friendship and the touching and funny follow-up to The Future Homemakers of America by the celebrated Laurie Graham. 'Why is Laurie Graham not carried on people's shoulders through cheering crowds? Her books are brilliant!' Marian Keyes Picking up ten years after The Future Homemakers of America left off, The Early Birds follows Peggy, Kath, Gayle, Lois and Audrey through the turn of the twenty-first century. The women are now in their seventies and time is rendering its Accounts ...
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The Early Birds is a hymn to lifelong female friendship and the touching and funny follow-up to The Future Homemakers of America by the celebrated Laurie Graham. 'Why is Laurie Graham not carried on people's shoulders through cheering crowds? Her books are brilliant!' Marian Keyes Picking up ten years after The Future Homemakers of America left off, The Early Birds follows Peggy, Kath, Gayle, Lois and Audrey through the turn of the twenty-first century. The women are now in their seventies and time is rendering its Accounts Payable: arthritis, cataracts, forgetfulness and departures. From the dawn of the new millennium - at which the anti-Christ unaccountably fails to appear, despite evangelist Gayle's predictions - Peggy soldiers on through new upheavals, including her ex-husband Vern's Alzheimer's diagnosis, and the death of one of her live-in friends. Then, on a clear blue day in September 2001, the US Air Force scrambles too late to save America from four hostile attacks, and for the first time Peggy wonders if being a USAF wife - the constant worry about your husband, the faraway postings in Alaska, Norfolk, Siberia, the lack of control over your own life - was worth it. 'You're getting very negative in your old age, Peggy Dewey,' says Lois. 'Sure it was worthwhile. Leastways we're not speaking Russky. And besides, we had some fun. Didn't we have some fun?'
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Purchase a lot of books at second hand stores and discovered Laurie Graham first by reading "Future Homemakers of America". Almost didn't go past the first 20 pages as the subject of American wives of airforce pilots, living in England during World War II, is not my genre. Kept at it and WOW!
The characters are so human, and their interaction with one another, so very real. It was a book that I began to ration, reading only a few pages each day as couldn't bear to reach the end. Thought about the characters throughout the day. I was hooked.
Then learned Laurie Graham had written a sequel. Thank goodness! The Early Birds continues the story of these wives as the war ends and they return to the USA. Dullsville, right? Not with these characters. In fact, some of the chapters left me speechless.
Many authors shouldn't try for a second book, but Laurie kept me engaged right to the end. You will be too.
