Lesson One: If you’re planning to go rogue, do it on a Thursday. Any earlier in the week, and the world will have a chance to make you regret it. Any later, the weekend gets in the way, and by Monday your great act of self-realization will have simply evaporated.

Lesson Two: If you’re planning to go rogue, don’t go it alone. Read CLOVER HENDRY’S DAY OFF first for a truly inspirational and wickedly good example of how to do it in style.

In her third novel about women who cleverly yet determinedly find their own agency, British author Beth Morrey tackles a fundamentally serious issue and clothes it in eccentric, even raucous humor yet never trivializes her protagonist.

"While it’s clear at the end that many things and relationships have changed, on the whole CLOVER HENDRY’S DAY OFF is about doing a brave U-turn in middle age and daring to be noticed in all the right ways."

For 24 insane hours and some 300 pages of sparkling prose, Clover Hendry is magnificently herself yet gathers all of us into her jaw-dropping escapades. It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of detachment as this archetypal “everywoman” --- a professionally skilled, family-devoted, resourceful, loving, seemingly tireless person --- suddenly bursts the bonds of compliance and spends a miraculous and dangerous day doing Exactly What She Wants.

CLOVER HENDRY’S DAY OFF starts on a hectic Thursday morning when our heroine hastily downs a pair of outdated Vicodin pills to ambush a headache. She suddenly feels a wave of giddy self-assertion coming on, and the rollercoaster of plausible but improbably connected events is set to roll.

It would be a cruel spoiler act to describe in detail all the happenings that follow and their overall cosmic connections. But imagine (and it’s so easy for most of us of the female persuasion) how deeply we’ve been conditioned to please others, put their welfare ahead of our own, go along with the status quo, meet male-power expectations, and, of course, say yes all the time when our inner selves are yelling “NO!”

Then imagine what it would be like to say what we really feel to our bosses, our colleagues, our authority figures, our parents, strangers who treat us like dirt, officials who make us invisible, or friends who betray us. Clover does just that; she’s direct, truthful, honest and clever. And the world --- her world, though shaken up --- doesn’t come to an end.

And somehow, through of all her shenanigans --- like impulse-buying a power dress, a radical hairstyle change, adopting a rabbit to live in her purse, demanding and getting her way, taking some nearly criminal risks --- she invites us all on a vicarious upward journey to reclaiming our self-worth. 

While it’s clear at the end that many things and relationships have changed, on the whole CLOVER HENDRY’S DAY OFF is about doing a brave U-turn in middle age and daring to be noticed in all the right ways. I’ve lost count of how many times I just wanted to shout out loud, “You go girl!”