The Future Homemakers of America
Filled with warmth, wit and wisdom, ‘The Future Homemakers of America’ takes us to the heart of female friendship. A novel fans of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’ will not be able to resist.Norfolk,1953. The Fens have never seen anything quite like the girls from USAF Drampton. Overpaid, overfed and over here.While their men patrol the skies keeping the Soviets at bay, some are content to live the life of the Future Homemakers of America – clipping coupons, cooking chicken pot pie – but other start to stray, looking for a little native excitement beyond the perimeter fence. Out there in the freezing fens they meet Kath Pharaoh, a tough but warm Englishwoman. Bonds are forged, uniting the women in friendship that will survive distant postings, and the passage of forty years.
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THE FUTURE HOMEMAKERS OF AMERICA
Laurie Graham
This novel is a work of fiction, and all names, characters, events, places and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, names, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This edition published by Harper Perennial 2006
Previously published in paperback by Fourth Estate in 2002
First published in Great Britain in 2001
Copyright © Laurie Graham 2001
Laurie Graham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover illustration © Rachel Ross
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007234073
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007393091 Version: 2017-03-30
From the reviews of The Future Homemakers of America:
‘A warm, life-affirming novel that offers its readers pure pleasure’
The Times
‘Graham has a sure-fire comic touch and a wayward invention…Occasionally compared to Alan Bennett, Graham exhibits precisely the same blend of toughness and sentiment’
Guardian
‘Superlative…the writing sparkles from first to last…the detail is delicious…A rich, many-layered portrait of Middle America in the second half of the last century. Where others have heaped scorn on the American Dream, or peddled dewy-eyed optimism, Graham simply tells it like it was – and tells it brilliantly’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Crackles with energy and snappy dialogue…Graham has always been good at catching and compressing how people speak, but here she has pulled off an absolute triumph; the voice of her sassy narrator, the redoubtable Peggy, never falters as she unfolds 40 years of friendship’
Daily Mail
‘An absorbing, funny, lively and sometimes moving story’
Sunday Times
‘A warm, witty and wise novel about female friendship…A feel-good book that can’t help but make you smile’
Hello!
‘A tenacity of voice and a deftly judged lightness of touch have always been Laurie Graham’s strengths as a novelist…a fast-moving and often funny saga’
ALI SMITH, TLS
For my own hardy perennialsBridget, Liz, Rachel, Trish and Vivvy
Contents
We were down at the commissary, just for something to do, me and Lois, pushing Sandie in her stroller. Breath puffing out like smoke every time we laughed and just hanging there in the air. The cold hadn’t killed the scent of the beet harvest, though. All my born days, I never knowed such a sickly smell.
‘I swear,’ she said, loud as you please, ‘this place is colder than a gravedigger’s ass.’ Lois always did have a mouth on her.
‘Uh-oh,’ she said, ‘here comes the Pie-Crust Queen.’
And sure enough, there was Betty running after us, flagging us to wait till she could catch her breath and tell us the big story.
‘Peggy!’ she said, gasping and wheezing and hanging on to my arm. ‘Have you heard the terrible news?’
When your husband flies F-84s, sitting up there on 3,000 gallons of jet fuel, cruising – now there’s a word – cruising at 510mph, hoping to get his tail waxed by some Russki so he can be Jock-of-the-Week back at the base, there’s only one kind of Terrible News, but we both knew, me and Lois, that it wasn’t that.
That kinda news comes quiet, on flannel feet. The base chaplain brings it to your door, and the CO’s wife follows through with a few brisk words about courage and dignity. After that, you better hope you got some friends. Some squadron wives to take turns answering your phone and feeding your kids and keeping you from falling into a thousand pieces.
When Terrible News comes to married quarters, there’s no pulling down of blinds. Military don’t hold with closing the drapes. Word gets round, but you’d never know, looking in from outside, that anything was happening, because heck, if air force wives went around yelling ‘Have you heard?’ the whole thing could run out of control. Next thing you know, every girl on the base’d be out there screaming, ‘His poor wife! His poor orphaned children! It’s so tragic. It’s unbearable. But I’m okay.
