This book of short stories was published by Lore Segal in 2023 on her 95th birthday. It consists of 16 stories; 10 of them are about the "Ladies' Lunch" group. This group of older women, now in their 90s, have been meeting for lunch for thirty years or more, usually at the home of one of the group. There are five ladies named as the main group (Ruth, Bridget, Farah, Lotte, and Bessie) but others are mentioned in later stories. Obviously over time their health and abilities have been affected by age, and at this point they often think of "how they will shuffle off this mortal coil."
Some of the stories are sad but not all of them. Most of them had a humorous element also.
My favorite stories were...
- "Ladies' Lunch" is focused on Lotte, as several stories are. This one is about Lotte's move to a care home, Green Trees, because she requires care and she cannot get along with any of her live-in caregivers.
- "Making Good" is not a Ladies' Lunch story. A group of people, half Jewish Holocaust survivors and half people from Vienna who were Nazi supporters during the war, or their descendants, take part in a Bridge Building Workshop to reconcile their differences. This was one of the longer stories in the book at 23 pages.
- "Pneumonia Chronicles" is an autobiographical story based on the time when the author was in the hospital for two weeks during the Covid pandemic. She had pneumonia, not Covid, but her children could not visit her when she was hospitalized.
I enjoy collections with stories that are linked and create an overall story when read together. As with any collection, there are some outstanding stories and some that did not do that much for me. I know I will reread this book and find more to enjoy in the stories.
I finished reading this book on Monday, October 7, and later in the day I learned that Lore Segal had died on that day, at age 96.
The stories in Lore Segal's Ladies' Lunch were recommended by Jeff Meyerson who comments on Short Story Wednesday posts at Patricia Abbott's blog. I thank Jeff for this recommendation and many others that I followed up on.
This looks interesting, Tracy. I do like stories with older protagonists; there's a certain perspective to them, I think. And the characters do sound interesting.
ReplyDeleteMargot, I suspect (from the various reviews I have read) that the older the reader is, the more they get out of the book. So it worked very well for me. It was a good read, and thought provoking.
DeleteThis sounds like a really unusual anthology. Like Margot, I like stories with older characters as they bring a lot of experience and different viewpoints. I'm thinking of Miss Marple in particular.
ReplyDeleteCath, I agree, older characters have a different perspective, and especially with these characters, they have had some unique experiences. The setting of New York is very good too, always in the background. The author was a very interesting person.
DeleteAs I may have mentioned in the Past, Jeff Meyerson reads a short story every day. As a result, his recommendations of short story anthologies and collections are right on the money!
ReplyDeleteI know, George, I am in awe of how many short stories Jeff reads, plus a lot of varied types of novels too. I often think I will try to read a short story a day but it hasn't worked for me yet.
DeleteI also like collections that all work together as a whole, either with a central theme or shared characters. This sounds like a wonderful book!
ReplyDeleteKelly, I was very glad I took a chance on this book. It is amazing that the author was able to write and publish so much at this stage in her life. And the book is short too, only about 130 pages.
DeleteI just watched a doc about Smith, Dench, Atkins and Plowright and it reminds me of that.
ReplyDeletePatti, that sounds like a very good documentary. I had to check out the title (Tea With the Dames) and I was surprised that I had not heard of it. It looks like we can watch it on Prime (Acorn TV). I am not that familiar with Eileen Atkins or Joan Plowright, so that is an added bonus.
DeleteThe writer Vivian Gornick wrote a recent article about her years of friendship with Lore Segal in The NY Review of Books. Ladies Lunch sounds like a book worth checking out. I too love short story collections where the stories are linked.
ReplyDeleteI missed that, Kathy, although I have a subscription to NY Review of Books. I don't remember when it started though. I logged onto the website and read the article and it was excellent. I think you would like Ladies' Lunch.
DeleteGornick (I'm a big fan) being among the other notable women writers cited in the obits I've seen, singing praise of Segal's work. You picked the best/worst time to read her work, clearly...I shall emulate your example (I'm pretty sure I've read her work one or twice over the decades, but no title are coming back to me).
ReplyDeleteTodd, if I had been looking in the right places I would have realized that Segal had been in bad health the previous few days, there was an article in the New York Times Magazine which I saw first when I was working on this post.
DeleteIsn't it wild that you just finished reading her book and then heard that she passed. Quite a coincidence. I read her obit in the news. Sad to hear. I like the sound of her stories ... and the ladies lunches for 30 years. I will check into her work. The Nazi sympathizers reconciliation story must be a doozy.
ReplyDeleteSusan, it felt very strange to hear that. The Ladies' Lunch stories (some of them anyway) had been published in the New Yorker and each one alone was not as good as reading them together. But the few longer stories not about the Ladies' Lunch group were quite good.
DeleteI love that she was still writing and publishing at age 95! This short story collection sounds like a good one. :D
ReplyDeleteLark, I agree, what an accomplishment to still be publishing stories and the short story collection at that age.
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