Editorial Content for Enormous Wings

Laurie Frankel’s new novel, ENORMOUS WINGS, should come with a warning: This book will make you angry on behalf of women who are treated as second-class citizens and denied their rights. But in addition to feeling anger, the story of Pepper Mills, a septuagenarian who recently has moved to Vista View Retirement Community in Austin, Texas, will have you smiling as you admire her spunk and wry sense of humor --- and, of course, the incredibly ridiculous situation in which she finds herself enmeshed. 

Pepper is a retired high school English teacher, and her first-person narrative clearly demonstrates that she was an exemplary educator. She moved into the retirement community at the behest of her three children, who determined for her that this is what she needs. So she sold her house, belongings and car. She no longer had a driver's license because after a fender bender, the person she accidentally hit cut up her license. In some ways, Pepper feels powerless against the combined might of her progeny.

There are several surprises at Vista View. Not a surprise is that every apartment is like the others, all 800 of them. In one of those resides her ex-husband, Roger. But surprisingly, she meets Moth, her next-door neighbor, a fellow teacher who originally hails from England and introduces her to the two people who become her best friends there: Masie and Dot. Moth (short for Timothy) becomes more than a friend, and that's where Pepper's life takes an incredible turn. 

Whereas Pepper had expected to spend the rest of her life making friends, reading and spending time with her family, something miraculous happens. For the first time in decades, she realizes that her sex life might not be over. And Moth is the perfect partner. But that's not the miraculous part. Pepper, at 77, gets pregnant. 

"There are themes that are brilliantly conceived and created, and the underlying truth remains that women must fight for our ability to tell our stories and make our own decisions."

At first, Pepper thinks she's dying. She's nauseated, exhausted and confused, and she can't eat. Was it a stroke? Did her cancer return? But after a complete physical exam, the unbelievable results are in. Pepper is in line to be the oldest pregnant person in history (except in the Bible). Her doctor believes that she will have a miscarriage because of her age. But when that doesn't happen, she must make some decisions. 

Unfortunately, Pepper lives in Texas. Her ability to make choices about her health, even if her life might be at risk, is severely limited. Her ability to get an abortion, should she so choose, is not just limited. In Texas, it doesn't exist. Her physician explains why the exception “for the life of the mother” is so ambiguous as to make it worthless. And so Pepper and Moth, her family and her friends, consider what might happen should she continue with the pregnancy. What would it be like for two senior citizens to have a baby?

As Pepper considers what might be, she compares having a baby at her age to having one in her youth. “We knew, as our children and grandchildren had not...what to do for a baby who wouldn't sleep, for a baby who was teething, for a baby with gas or dry skin or diaper rash.” Pepper knows when to add new foods into a baby's diet and the importance of napping when the baby does. She comments, “Such was the wisdom of elders.” Moth points out that they are retired and have nothing but time to spend with a baby. Plus, the others in the retirement community love babies and would be happy to help.

Following Pepper's adventures is a memorable experience. There's plenty to get angry about, such as when the misogynist male obstetrician tells Pepper why she can't have an abortion. He's on her side, he tells her, “I have three daughters. I've had three wives. I love women. I've made caring for them my life's work. Texas and states like ours that banned these procedures did so because we value women.”

There's life, there's pregnancy, and there's also death. Frankel treats all with dignity and careful consideration. Pepper explains, “It is meaningless and irrelevant and impossible either to pinpoint or pin down where life starts or where life starts to end, life and death both being ouroborosly indifferent to rhetoric or bombast or what any of us want or want to believe.” She loves her family ouroborosly (endlessly) and demonstrates it in how she helps her children and grandchildren. 

In a perfect plot twist, Pepper’s granddaughter, Lola, needs her help. Pepper has always been the grandmother Lola could rely on. And no matter what it takes, Pepper will help Lola. She explains how we do things for our grandchildren we'd never do for anyone else in the world, even ourselves. Grandmothers reading this will understand, as will those who have had fabulous grandparents.

In addition to the very real and horrific issues regarding a woman's right to make medical decisions about her own body, Frankel has created an extremely engaging, clever and intelligent woman. When she meets Moth, he is helping her wash a truck. Pepper describes the attraction she feels for him and tells us, “He was soaked to the skin, hair triangles wilted against his scalp, shoes squelchy with dirty water, but I was distracted by his correct identification of irony, a skill far rarer than the ability to wash a truck.” There's humor aplenty.

The title of the novel comes from a Gabriel García Márquez short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” But unlike in that story, Pepper's figurative “wings” are her ability to open them to shelter those she loves. At the start of the novel, Pepper is perhaps a stereotypical senior woman, willing to let others make decisions for her. She appears unable to stand up for herself and demand that others listen. But by the end, she has changed not only physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. She has become a force to be reckoned with, determined to help others make decisions that she could not.

One of the striking things about ENORMOUS WINGS is its presentation of the concept of circularity. Pepper often talks about beginnings and endings and how they are difficult to define. Frankel manages to beautifully demonstrate this idea as people and events in the novel circle around. The priest who changes Pepper's life in the beginning is there at the end in a totally different capacity. Moth experiences the circularity when he finds out the medical community's hypothesis regarding Pepper's fertility and how it related to his wife, who died at a young age. The first and last sentences of the book also cleverly demonstrate that circularity. 

There are themes that are brilliantly conceived and created, and the underlying truth remains that women must fight for our ability to tell our stories and make our own decisions.