Author:  Lorna Landvik

I just finished this book a couple of days ago & I loved it!!  What does anyone else think?  Took it to my book club & we are going to pass it among ourselves as our list is already quite long.  What great characters, a great picture of how life & the world changed from the 60's to the 90's.  If you're looking for a book to keep you interested or a book that while you can't wait to finish it you really don't want it to end, this is the book for you.  A perfect summer read!!

What does anyone else think? 

My book club did not have good luck with this novel. One girl didn't finish it and others felt there were too many characters and the book was too long (they lost interest). Glad you enjoyed it! We all like different types of books and this one is often recommended for book clubs.

I also read this for a book club I am in and we had mixed reactions to it.  Some characters were annoying (mostly Slip) to some.  I did think it was a little too long, but I did like it.  One person in the group didn't finish it because she just didn't like it. 

Nancy:  Glad you enjoyed Angry Housewives ---- I did, too.  I read it because people up here in Minnesota (my summer home) told me about Landvik.  (Minnesota is Louise Erdrich, Lorna Landvik, Sinclair Lewis, Sigurd Olson, etc. country).  Two things I'd like to say on behalf of the book---to me, it delineates the value of female friendships of LONG standing, and it shows how helpful a good book club can be, in getting the members to read interesting literature and then to discuss the book at length together.  Another Landvik title you might like is Patty Jane's House of Curl, although it sounds from the other posts besides yours that it wouldn't be those readers' "cup of tea."

Thanks for the suggestion.  I have already read that one a long time ago.  I remember enjoying it.  It's funny because our book club just met on Tuesday night and the member I passed Angry Housewives to handed it back to me and said "I loved it"  It is now in the hands of the next member who wanted to read it. 

I agree with you about the long standing friendship thing.  Our book club has been meeting for over 10 years.  For many of us, long years ago it was one of our only social outlets as we just didn't get out much with young children, etc... We were just talking the other night about how we wished we had kept a list of books we had read and what a long list it would be.  12 a year plus the books we read on our own & recommended to each other. 

Have not read Louise Erdrich but wasn't she married to a man who was an author?  I read his book if I'm thinking of the right person.  We have a couple here in our area who are authors, Carrie Brown and her husband,( John I think,) She wrote Rose's Garden, The Hatbox Baby, The Rope Walk and a few others.  We actually had Carrie at one of our book club meetings.  Don't you just love knowing local celebrities?

Louise Erdrich's author-husband is/was Michael Dorris.  Some of Erdrich's books are about Native Americans of today.  If you decide to get acquainted with her writing, you might take a look at something such as Love Medicine .  Then, she wrote about the other side of her family background (the German) in The Master Butcher's Singing Ckub,  I haven't read any of Dorris's books, myself.  I'm only a part-time resident of Minnesota, but this summer I'm reading one of Sinclair Lewis's novels I had never gotten around to before, Dodsworth.  It turns out that the "hero" of this one is a more sympathetic character than the ones in Main Street, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith, etc.  And the book 'stands up well over time'.

The last time I met an author in person (and she signed my copy of her second book) it was Firoozeh Dumas.  She is the author of two books of humorous memoirs about growing up Iranian-American in California.  The first was Funny in Farsi, and the second was Laughing Without an Accent.   I recommend them to those of your book club who especially enjoyed Erma Bombeck's books.