Introduction

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Five women, one passion, and the unbreakable bond of friendship

When five young mothers—Frankie, Linda, Kath, Ally, and Brett—first meet in a neighborhood park in the late 1960s, their conversations center on marriage, raising children, and a shared love of books. Then one evening, as they gather to watch the Miss America Pageant, Linda admits that she aspires to write a novel herself, and the Wednesday Sisters Writing Society is born. The five women slowly, and often reluctantly, start filling journals, sliding pages into typewriters, and sharing their work. In the process, they explore the changing world around them: the Vietnam War, the race to the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they believe about themselves. At the same time, the friends carry one another through more personal changes—ones brought about by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success. With one another’s support and encouragement, the Wednesday Sisters begin to embrace who they are and what they hope to become, welcoming readers to experience, along with them, the power of dreaming big.

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Excerpt

Five women, one passion, and the unbreakable bond of friendship

When five young mothers-Frankie, Linda, Kath, Ally, and Brett-first meet in a neighborhood park in the late 1960s, their conversations center on marriage, raising children, and a shared love of books. Then one evening, as they gather to watch the Miss America Pageant, Linda admits that she aspires to write a novel herself, and the Wednesday Sisters Writing Society is born. The five women slowly, and often reluctantly, start filling journals, sliding pages into typewriters, and sharing their work. In the process, they explore the changing world around them: the Vietnam War, the race to the moon, and a women's movement that challenges everything they believe about themselves. At the same time, the friends carry one another through more personal changes-ones brought about by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success. With one another's support and encouragement, the Wednesday Sisters begin to embrace who they are and what they hope to become, welcoming readers to experience, along with them, the power of dreaming big. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. What do you think draws the women together in the opening
scenes of The Wednesday Sisters? Is it, as Linda suggests, a shared
love of books, or is it a shared fascination with Brett’s white
gloves, or is it both or something else?

2. Twice in the novel, Linda attempts to ask about Brett’s gloves, but
she is cut off by one of the other Sisters. Why are they reluctant to
cross that line? What do you think the gloves symbolize? Do you
think young women meeting Brett today would be as gentle about
her gloves? Are there generational differences in the ways women
relate?

3. Ally enters the group in part based on an unspoken assumption
that Carrie is her daughter, when the child is in fact her niece.
Why do you think Frankie keeps this secret rather than sharing it
with the others? Do you think Ally’s life would be different today,
given the existence of fertility treatments and support groups?

4. Why does Kath go so far in trying to win Lee back? Did this surprise
you? Do you think she would have acted differently if the
success of her marriage weren’t so important to her parents? If divorce
had been as prevalent then as it is now? If she had been able
to provide for herself financially? Would you, like Kath’s friends,
be reluctant to counsel her to leave her husband? Or can you
imagine giving her different advice?

5. Linda’s breast cancer and Ally’s fertility issues cause each to
doubt her own femininity, and leave their friends at a loss as to
how to help them. Have you or a friend ever been through a similar
crisis? What has helped you hold on to your sense of self
through tough times? How have your friendships affected this experience?

6. Why do you think Frankie finds it so difficult to tell Danny she’s
writing a book, when she has no trouble at all confiding this fact
to her husband’s boss? Why are we sometimes reluctant to admit
we have dreams?

7. The old abandoned mansion—“a Miss Havisham house,” as
Frankie’s husband, Danny, calls it, after the moldering mansion in
Dickens’s Great Expectations—is a haunting presence through most
of the novel. What does this house seem to symbolize? Does it
mean something different to each of the Sisters? What does its destruction
mean?

8. Published books are mentioned throughout the novel—from The
Great Gatsby to The Bell Jar to To Kill a Mockingbird. What role
do these titles play in The Wednesday Sisters? Why do you think
each of the Sisters chooses the “model book” she does? What
model book might you choose yourself?

9. The writing group the Sisters form in The Wednesday Sisters
helps its members grow in self-awareness and self-confidence.
Have you been a part of a group—perhaps even a reading or writing
group—that has had a similar effect on you? What do you
think of the author’s message that writing doesn’t have to culminate
in a book deal; that it can feed the soul of anyone who works
hard at it; that with hard work, it is possible to get better; and
that writing can help one make sense of one’s life?

10. In one memorable scene, the Wednesday Sisters gather in a funeral
parlor and imagine what they can accomplish in their lives
that will not perish with their deaths. Did this make you think
about writing in a new light? What about motherhood?

11. The women’s movement provides an evolving backdrop to the
lives of the women in The Wednesday Sisters. How did you relate
the experiences of the Wednesday Sisters to events in your own
life or in the lives of women you know who lived at that time?

12. The Wednesday Sisters make a tradition of watching the Miss
America Pageant every year. How do their reactions to the pageant
change over time, and why? How does the pageant itself change?

13. If the Miss America Pageant is one recurring motif in the novel,
the space program is another. What similarities and differences do
you see in the way the author uses these two iconic slices of Americana?

14. Brett’s novel, The Mrs. Americas, posits a future in which a spaceship
crewed by women and carrying a cargo of frozen sperm takes
off on a mission to propagate the human race beyond the confines
of our solar system. Why do you think Clayton chose to have
Brett write this particular novel?

15. In addition to exploring the empowerment of women and the
prevalence of sexism, The Wednesday Sisters addresses other social
issues. In what ways are race and class raised in the novel?
What did you think of the Sisters’ reactions to the fact that Ally’s
husband, Jim, was from India?

16. Why do you think the author chose to set the climax of her novel
on the set of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson? How does
this scene compare to the Miss America Pageants described in the
novel?

17. Throughout the novel, the Wednesday Sisters’ friendships are
complex, constantly evolving, and occasionally downright messy.
Yet even as their bonds are tested, the group endures and grows
stronger. What do you think keeps their friendships growing
stronger rather than breaking apart?

18. In an interview, author Meg Waite Clayton once said, “If an author
makes me weep, I am theirs—though why so many of us like
books that make us cry puzzles me to no end.” Do you share this
sentiment? Why do you think readers respond to novels that
make them cry?

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Weblinks

»	Interview with the AUTHOR

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