Lorna Landvik
From her sensational sleeper hit Patty Jane's House of Curl to her heartwarming novel Welcome to the Great Mysterious, Lorna Landvik has won the hearts of readers everywhere by skillfully balancing hilarity with pathos, and bittersweet insights with heartwarming truths. Now she returns to her beloved, eccentric stomping ground of small-town Minnesota where the most eclectic, and engaging group of women you'll ever meet share love, loss, and laughter.
Sometimes life is like a bad waiter—it serves you exactly what you don't want. The women of Freesia Court have come together at life's table, fully convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delectable desserts, and a strong shoulder can't fix. Laughter is the glue that holds them together—the foundation of a book group they call AWEB— Angry Wives Eating Bon Bons—an unofficial "club" that becomes much more. It becomes a lifeline.
The five women each have a story of their own to tell. There's Faith, the newcomer, a lonely housewife and mother of twins, a woman who harbors a terrible secret that has condemned her to living a lie; big, beautiful Audrey, the resident sex queen who knows that good posture and an attitude can let you get away with anything; Merit, the shy, quiet doctor's wife with the face of an angel and the private hell of an abusive husband; Kari, a thoughtful, wise woman with a wonderful laugh as "deep as Santa Claus's with a cold" who knows the greatest gifts appear after life's fiercest storms; and finally, Slip, activist, adventurer, social changer, a tiny, spitfire of a woman who looks trouble straight in the eye and challenges it to arm wrestle.
Holding on through forty eventful years—through the swinging Sixties, the turbulent Seventies, the anything-goes Eighties, the nothing's impossible Nineties—the women will take the plunge into the chaos that inevitably comes to those with the temerity to be alive and kicking. Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons depicts a special slice of American life, of stay-at-home days and new careers, children and grandchildren, bold beginnings and second chances, in which the power of forgiveness, understanding, and the perfectly timed giggle fit is the CPR that mends broken hearts and shattered dreams.
Once again Lorna Landvik leaves you laughing and crying, as she reveals perhaps the greatest truth: that there is nothing like the saving grace of best friends.
Writing and theater were Lorna Landvik's twin passions when she was growing up in her home town of Minneapolis, Minnesota. After graduating from high school, she and her best friend traveled in Europe, settling in Bavaria where they supported themselves as hotel chamber maids and English tutors. When she returned to the States, Landvik briefly attended the University of Minnesota before moving to San Francisco, where she performed stand-up and improvisational comedy. Another move took her to Los Angeles, where she worked as a stand-up comic at the Comedy Store and The Improv, supplementing her income with a variety of temp jobs--including one at the Playboy Mansion ("I felt like Margaret Mead studying a secret society") and working for Atlantic Records.
In California, Landvik married her high school sweetheart. Their first daughter was born in 1985. A year later the trio joined the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. "A thousand people started the march on the West Coast, but we were stranded in the desert and a core group of about 400 decided to go on," Landvik recalls. "It ended nine months later with a candlelight vigil at the reflecting pool in Washington D.C." After the march, Landvik and her family moved back to Minneapolis and she began working on what was to become her first novel. Their second daughter was born in 1991.
Landvik has continued to nurture her interest in theater; appearing with the nationally-acclaimed improvisational group "Dudley Riggs," and acting in plays such as "Bad Seed," "Lunatic Cellmates," "Valley of the Dolls," "On the Lam with Do and Rae," "The Smelt Princess," "And the Winner Is," and "My Backyard Party."
Landvik made her debut as a novelist with the critically acclaimed Patty Jane's House of Curl. She is also the author of Your Oasis on Flame Lake, The Tall Pine Polka, Welcome to the Great Mysterious, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Oh My Stars and her newest novel, The View From Mount Joy.