The Wednesday Sisters

Clayton's novel is superior to many other novels that portray female bonding. This literate, compelling story tracks the lives of five young moms who meet on a California playground in the late '60s. The characters seem very real, and narrator Julie Dretzin breathes life into them from the opening of the story. Her depiction of Kath, the former Southern belle, is especially convincing. Listeners will come to care about this group of young women, who have literary ambitions, along with interests that predate the women's movement, such as the Miss America pageant. As in real life, there are moments of triumph, sorrow, irony, and happiness. Listening to this is like catching up with old friends. D.L.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

March 3, 2008
In her light second novel, Clayton chronicles a group of mothers who convene in a Palo Alto park and share their changing lives as the late 1960s counterculture blossoms around them. Linda is a runner who tracks women's progress at the Olympics. Brett has one eye on the moon, where men are living out her astronaut dreams. Southern belle Kath isn't convinced she has dreams outside the confines of her marriage (but she's open to persuasion), while quiet Ally only hopes for what the other women already have: a child. Frankie, a Chicago transplant who has followed her computer genius husband to a nascent Silicon Valley, is the story's narrator and the ladies' ringleader, inspiring them all to follow her dream of becoming a writer. They write in moments snatched from their household chores and share their stories in the park. Though the narration and story lines are so syrupy they verge on hokey, Clayton ably conjures the era's details and captures the women's changing roles in a world that expects little of them.