In 1960, women were not allowed to serve on a jury, get a credit card, go on birth control pills, enter a contract without their husbands’ approval, or even get an Ivy League college education. On average, they earned 60 cents for every dollar a man earned.
Got your attention?
In May, Georgia Writers Museum will host a Meet the Author presentation by New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Marie Bostwick on her new book, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, featuring Margaret Ryan, who never really intended to start a book club or initiate a feminist revolution in her buttoned-up, northern Virginia suburb.
By mid-60’s standards, Ryan is living the American woman’s dream.
She has a husband, three children, a station wagon, and a home in an exclusive and picturesque neighborhood.
She has a standing invitation to the local coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman’s Place, the magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy.
On paper, she has it all. So why doesn’t that feel like it’s enough?
Margaret is thrown for a loop when she meets Charlotte Gustafson, her suburb’s newest and most intriguing resident.
As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte’s orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood friends to its inaugural meeting.
As the women share cocktails, secrets, and honest reactions to the new, controversial bestseller, The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan, they begin to discover the American dream they’ve been sold isn’t all a bed of roses — and they each share a secret longing for more.
These four friends have no idea their impromptu club and the books they read will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments — and ultimately, what will prove to be the most consequential and freeing year of their lives. Bostwick is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 19 works of historical and contemporary fiction that have been published in 14 languages.
They include The Second Sister, adapted in 2018 for a Hallmark Hall of Fame feature film, and Hope on the Inside, published in March 2019 and chosen as a Reader’s Digest Select Editions book.
Bostwick’s latest novel, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, will be released next, shortly before her GWM appearance on Tuesday, May 6, at 11:30 a.m. (doors open at 11 a.m.).
Tickets are $40 ($35 each for two or more) and will include a gourmet luncheon tailored to this event by Chef Brent. Visit Georgia Writers Museum at georgiawritersmuseum.org to register and pre-order a copy of The Book Club for Troublesome Women for signing by the author.