The Future Homemakers of America

Future Homemakers of America #1

by Laurie Graham

In the tradition of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, this moving novel, filled with warmth, wit, and wisdom, is about a group of women who discover--over the course of 40 turbulent years--the nature of true friendship.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Chick Lit, Book Club, Historical, Contemporary, British Literature

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Laurie Graham was first published at the advanced age of 40. Gentle comedy is her style. She is the author of seventeen novels, including the best-selling The Future Homemakers of America and its sequel, The Early Birds

Mother of four, grandmother of many, Laurie is married to a New Yorker and lives in County Dublin, Ireland.

You can visit her website, read what she's up to and say hello at http://lauriegraham.com

Reviews

[Beth Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this book on my mom's book shelf last month to take to the pool to read one afternoon. I had a very hard time getting started with it. I picked it up again and again, a few pages at a time during our hectic military move this summer, lost it, then found it a few days ago and couldn't put it down. I finished it last night, and cried and cried towards the ending. I have no idea why. It isn't necessarily a sad book (though it has some very sad moments in it) but being a military wife, it struck a chord with me. The friendships we make as milspouses, especially overseas, are often motley yet enduring. I can't say that this would be a book that is universally appreciated, but I am glad I found it. (I read one review comparing it to the Ya Ya Sisterhood and that's pretty much on target.) It made me ponder the life journeys we each travel, and how endings can be so unexpected...happy, tragic, bizarre, or otherwise.

[Antof9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

So. . . I'm not even sure how to write the journal entry on this one. It's interesting what goes through your head as you read each book. It's very Americentric. And there is a lot of stuff in here that's very "military", and some that's very Texas, and some that's very 1952-1980.

Another interesting thing, based on the time, is that today was the funeral for Rosa Parks. I wrote a little bit about it in my blog. I happened to read the section of the book, today, after watching the funeral on tv, where one of the kids asks Peggy (the narrator) about black people riding busses. The British friend, Kath, comments about them working on the busses, but riding them? RIP, Rosa Parks.

I cried several times reading this book, but I also laughed and smiled. And it gave me a lot of memories, good and bad. My father was in the Air Force for all of my life that I was old enough to remember, so this book was like stepping into a time capsule I was very familiar with. However, a lot of the lives portrayed in this book were more sad than I remember, or at least much more sad than my own experience.

I really liked Peggy. I liked her befriending Kath, when stationed in England. I liked her wanting to do something more than just be a DW (Dependant Wife), and I liked how she was such a good friend, a fact that Grice comments on near the end of the book.

This book covers so much time, it's amazing. You literally go through a tiny chunk of history while reading it. And of course, it's from a point of view that not many can relate to. I think I'll try to find a copy for my mom and see if she likes it or not.

What's interesting to me about the way these friends stay in touch is that my experience with the military is that I don't have any long-time friends. I really didn't keep in touch with them. And these women really did stay together. Or maybe Peggy kept them together, I don't know. But I'm always jealous of people who have known each other since way back when. . .

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first picked up this book in an antique store in Arkansas. The cover was cute and intriguing. But when I read the jacket, I was sold. Being an Air Force spouse, and a history buff, I had to get it. Oddly enough, I was on my way to visit an old friend from a previous base(also an AF spouse) . When I got to her house, I saw that she had a copy on her bookshelf. That was an excellent endorsement for the book. I started reading it that night and could not put it down. I passed that copy of the book on to another book-lover Air Force spouse. And I have subsequently bought 2 more copies that I have passed on to AF Spouse friends. Each time I passed it to a friend, I commanded that they too pass it on to a friend.
The story was delightful and warm. I grew to "know" each character as if she were my friend. It was refreshing to see the factual depiction of the daily fears and joys we live with as military spouses. Too many times it is portrayed as hokey or heroic. It's not. The truth is we don't talk about it. Ms. Graham struck a nerve...in a good way. I suspect she's "been there".

[Cass · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at a library book sale. I liked the cover, plus it fell outside of my normal reading genre. I like to regularly read something a bit more mainstream then usual.

I liked this book. It was predicatable, it was corny, it was sweet. It had a host of very stereotypical characters. But I read it nearly two years ago, I have read nearly a hundred books since, and I still occasionally think about it.

I think about the way they parented. I think about the scene when a bunch of officer's wives all have regular morning tea together. They bring their kids, and goo and gah over the latest addition. They seemed to do that every day.

The book follows the lives of four women, all wives of US Army pilots stationed in Britain. They live in a little bubble on the Army base, rich women when compared to the poverty of the locals in the area. This is a story that just follows the lives of these woman, commenting and observing them over a long period of time. It says and does all the things a book of this type should do. There is the wild girl, the bad mother, the stuck-up one who falls on her face, the good one.

I wouldn't read it again, I wouldn't even recommend it to a friend (I have plenty that would come before it), but I did enjoy reading it.

[Karyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd love to give this four and a half stars, but four will have to do.

Peggy Dewey is an Air Force wife whose husband is stationed to Norfolk, England, in the early 1950s. She forms a core group of friends with ladies she's known since high school and from previous postings, and even includes a native Englishwoman. Eventually the ladies all go their various ways, though Peggy keeps them all tied together and informed of what's going on in each other's lives. It's quite surprising to see how intertwined their lives continue to be, even after they're no longer part of the military. It's also quite surprising to see how different a Dependent Wife's life was back in the 1950s, compared to my own as a current Navy spouse. Back then you couldn't work outside the home, even if you wanted to. Your job was simply to keep house, raise the children, and wait till your husband arrived home -- if he wasn't killed on duty.

I really did enjoy this book. I got halfway through it in about a day and would have finished it as quickly if life hadn't interfered. I found the bits where the ladies are still military wives to be the most interesting, but I did enjoy seeing a snapshot of life in America from the 1950s to the 90s through the lives of these six women and their children.

It's a good, light read -- perfect for lazy days on the beach.

[Graceann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's the thing about Laurie Graham's novels. You start off, and you think, "this is fun; this is nice and light," and by the end you are in love with the characters and hate that you have to say goodbye to them.

Future Homemakers of America begins with several USAF wives living near one another on a base in England. When they make a pilgrimage to watch King George's funeral train pass by, they meet a local woman who becomes important in all of their lives. This is all about the power of friendship and how it's usually one person (in this case, our protagonist) who keeps everyone in the loop and maintains ties throughout the years.

The way the experiences of these ladies and their families intertwine seems to be deceptively simple, but as we progress through the decades and the generations, the complexity makes the story even more interesting, compelling and touching. The back blurbs tell us that the novel is laugh-out-loud funny. I didn't find that to be true, though I was well aware and appreciative of the wit at play here. Laurie Graham is very clever with a line.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book about a group of military wives over the course of 40 years. The one thing that helped me tremendously was to have read the interview with the author in the back of the book early on. Laurie Graham is a British author married to an American and writing about America. Some of her wording was a bit awkward but after understanding her background, I quickly forgave her and changed up the language in my head when necessary as I read along. That's my only complaint about a good story that wrapped up so well in the end. She developed each character very well. All had distinct personalities and added something to the group of 5. All the loose ends were tied up and it didn't feel like the author did a "rush to finish writing the book in 25 more pages" tie up. I hate when that happens; ruins a good story every time. Anyway, Laurie Graham does a great job of writing. I'll be on the lookout for more of her books.

[Vesna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have not expected to enjoy this book, but it is written so attractively like a little common people's history (US, UK), read it in a couple of days, couldn't put down.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Future Homemakers of America is about five American women whose husbands are posted to an airbase in Norfolk, UK in 1952. Although the author, Laurie Graham is a Brit, she has the American idiom down pat. This is a funny book, a sad book, and a book about how women essentially have to fend for themselves, even though they were taught from the time they were toddlers that their life's goal should be to get a man to provide for them.
Graham's heroines do not, in general, buy the Air Force line about the stiff upper lip, the teas for officers' wives, and their job being to support their man so he can keep the Russians from blowing the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Wales off the map. They love their husbands, but they don't love the military and what it does to their husbands. It's a lonely life out there in the east of England, and all they have is each other.
There's Peggy and Vern, Betty and Ed, Gayle and Okey, Audrey and Lance, and Lois and Herb, all gamely doing their best to fight off the boredom and terror until their husbands come home from a sortie. On their first outing, to see King George VI's funeral train go by, they meet Kath, the only person in the small crowd willing to talk to them. Betty, who longs to make friends with a real British person, offers Kath a ride home and she eventually agrees.
Kath invites them in for tea, and they end up staying longer than they expected. John Pharaoh, whose relationship to Kath is unexplained until near the end of the book, shows a real interest in Lois, which she reciprocates. Finally, the women get back to the base and married life.
Graham drops little hints about the relationships the women have with their husbands. Ed "keeps Betty on a real short leash," Peggy observes. There's Vern, who tells Peggy to "stop fraternizing with a bunch of breeds," meaning Kath and John Pharaoh. There's Okey, who lives on love with Gayle. There's Lance, who will become "a real brass hat," (a senior officer) with Audrey's help.
Years roll by. The husbands are transferred to other bases, and most eventually leave the service. There are casualties. But the women stay together, writing and calling each other, eventually visiting. Their children call their mothers' friends "Aunty." Many of the women don;t have much of a relationship with their own families, but up until the end, the five "dependent wives" and Kath stick together.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five young American women, all married to air force pilots stationed on a military base in post WWII England are the main characters.
Bored with the limited choice of activities on the base they take to sight seeing. They find their first native friend in Kath. Few people realize the extent of the poverty the two wars produced in England but this book begins by depicting the normal military base then showing it in harsh contrast to the stark simplicity and poverty their rural friend lives in. What begins with a gaggle of naive women in a similar situation of enforced contact develops into believable friendships stretching across decades and cultures, likes, dislikes, and changing social standings. The detail and characters are well crafted, they each retain a consistent resilient core they develop from though not always into admirable people. The novel covers nearly 40 years with all the major political events as backdrops for the reader to relate to just as the characters do. But just as with our lives these major events tie us to time but are not a part of our immediate life.
The chapters are vignettes, nearly short stories of their own. There is a feeling of time's progression with each new chapter.

[Redfox5 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story about six friends and their lives over the next 40 or so years. The book starts in England with the death of King George. Peggy and the other girls from the American air base, head down to the train station to pay their respects to the funeral train. Here they meet Kath and their lives are changed forever.

I really liked all the main characters, they were all flawed and likable at the same time. The book mainly focuses on Peggy and Kath as theirs is the friendship that doesn't fall out like all the others seem to.

It's basically a book about life and at times it's pretty depressing and at other times it's very uplifting. I like how Graham put in newspaper clippings from the major events that happened and how the characters reacted to them. I also liked how she showed how attitudes were starting to change through the younger generations.

I read this very quickly but this was helped along by the beautiful summer day. I have spent most of the day in the garden, slowly burning and loving it.

[Cass · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could best be described as a quaint Sunday afternoon movie for middle aged women. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. Just an easy read when I was laying sick on my couch.

The book centres around four or five women, all wives of Army pilots stationed in England. All the typical characters are present. The beaten wife, the wife on the verge of a divorce, the one who drinks too much, the one who wants heaps of kids, the one who can't get pregnant, the one who is a domestic goddess, the one who cooks from a can. Narrated by one of the women the book spans a generation of relationships, friendships, births, deaths and marriages.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book quite a few years ago and absolutely loved it. I've read it a couple of times since but it's a been over a year since I last read it so I thought I'd pick it up again. This is the story of six women who spend time together in England in 1952, and spans the rest of their lives, following their individual journeys as they lose touch and come back together in interesting ways. It's just wonderful, an addictive page-turner with a heart of gold. I just love stories that are set over a long period, in this case over 40 years. You really should read this immediately, if not sooner.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely write reviews on here but this book deserves it. In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn't have terribly high expectations for this book. I was proven wrong. In fact I read the whole thing in less than 24 hours.

This book showed the strength and resilience of a group of women who were brought together because of their Air Force husbands. It follows them through love, marriage, babies, divorce, death, and many things in between. Along with the activities of their lives, they are surrounded by many of the 20th century's biggest events. Each of the women had their own strengths and in the end, friendship is the greatest one.

[Sj · Rating 1 out of 5]

About 6 women who become friends while 5 of them are with their husbands stationed at an Air Force Base in England. The 6th woman is English. The novel spans many years of their friendship. The relationships were interesting. I kept reading because I liked the characters, they had a lot of potential. However, it stops at potential. The novel was predictable at times and took forever to finally get to the reveal. You read most of the book already knowing how it is going to end, which is disappointing.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a really hard time getting through this book on my kindle. My book club decided to read it because we wanted another book like "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons" (which we LOVED) but we were sorely disappointed. I wasn't impressed by the writing style and didn't feel like it really went anywhere. I was very disappointed.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had so much potential and yet I find myself disappointed. The characters, while colorful, never felt authentic to me. And one has to work diligently to match family members to the main characters. And the story line failed to seize my interest.

[Melissa (Semi Hiatus Until After the Holidays) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Women meet on an Air Force base in England, follows their friendships over many years. Recipes and a real flavor for the time. I just didn't have much of a connection to the characters, they never seemed very real.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story of a friendship amongst five women spanning from WWII England to the present. It was just OK. I don’t know if I’d bother reading another title by this author.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not get into this book. It was so confusing, and there was nothing to make me like any of the characters so I gave up, not caring what happened to their lives.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really enjoyable read, I loved the characters and their life stories.

[Ilda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the book, and I will suggest it to my friends as well.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing to note about this book is that there's not an overarching plot. Although there are plot points that connect, it starts with a group of friends in 1952 and quickly continues moving through the events of their lives over the next 35-40 years. It's a lot to pack in and it moves quickly! Sometimes the characters feel very realistic - they speak brashly, honestly, and make mistakes and hurt one another. But also, I felt like though they remained "friends" over all that time, they were more like acquaintances; there were very few experiences where it seemed like they supported one another or worked together to deepen their friendship. It was just implied that they loved one another. I noticed how they just brushed hard feelings under the table instead of talking it out.
The characters were often negative or at least blasé about their lives, which strangely felt realistic to me. I loved the growth of Kath's character, and the other women's continued connection with this relative stranger through the years and across many miles.
I don't know what it was about this book but I really enjoyed it, couldn't wait to continue reading (although I would've liked more detail in the early decades).

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not so much “finished this book” as “finished with this book”. Did not finish.

Here’s the thing. I really liked the idea of a though the decades friendship,story set in England with the royal family’s dramas as backdrop. Like Forrest Gump meets Sisterhood of the traveling Pants with the Crown on in the background. Check, check, and check.

But in order for a friendship drama to work, you have to care about the characters. And in order to give two cents about the characters, you have to remember who they each are. Something would happen and I’m like, is this the woman with the workaholic husband, the abusive husband, or the dead husband? Whose kid is that? Is this even one of their kids?

And maybe this next one is even more my fault, but the cultural and time period barriers made it so that I couldn’t understand what was happening at points.

I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed the book had a kept notes and a google search for 1950s British pop culture references, but I didn’t.

[Deborah Conard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Future Homemakers because it was compared to Yaya Sisterhood which I really enjoyed. I can see why it would be compared to it, but truthfully Yaya is much better.

I grew tired of trying to keep all the characters straight and finally realized the book was primarily about Peg, Kath and Lois. These three characters were well developed and interesting. FH is quite funny, especially the dialogue. Kath was the most interesting character and she wasn't the main character!

The characters made several racist remarks which shocked me, but I understood the frame in which they were made--that was more typical of the time period, post WWII. I think I am more aware of racist remarks now considering the cultural climate we are living in.

I think I'll look for another one of the books written by this author and see if they are stronger.

[Katie Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book was pretty good. It was historical fiction and very interesting.

I loved the dynamic with the friends and how, much like in real life, you don't always know everything about your friends but you will stand by them regardless.

The book focused on military wives after the end of WW2 which is a time I have not read much historical fiction about but certainly enjoyed nonetheless.

I gave this a 3 star rating because while I enjoyed it and it was a bit of a push in a new direction for me, I had a hard time seeing it through to the end. It isn't that it was not interesting, just around the middle of the book I found it to be a little less than I expected, it was an interesting story line I just stopped enjoying some of the characters that made me enjoy the beginning of the book.

[Donna Haskett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book at a neighbourhood little library, and picked it up for it's cover. Longtime female friendships appealed to me, so I brought it home. I have no military friends, or family, so it was hard to relate to - but I do feel it gave me an idea of what that kind of life would be like as a military wife, so it seemed well researched. The character development was better for some characters than others - or maybe I just warmed to some more than others, but a few seemed to fall flat for me.
This wasn't a book I couldn't put down, but also not one I could let go and stop reading part way through. I did feel the story had some dragging parts, but it kept me interested enough to see it through.

[Stacy Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually quite enjoyed this book even though a whole lotta nothing actually happened. TFHOA covers decades of marriage and divorce and children and grandchildren among America’s first generation of ‘liberated women’’. There’s no singular plot in TFHOA, but the friendships and lives of these American women (and their bonus British friend) are as realistic as anything I’ve experienced in my 44 years, so it’s really just a pleasant little telling of life as an American military wife. Be aware though, that the language and behavior towards minorities, the special needs community, and the LGTBQ community reflects the era.... there were more than a few cringy moments.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little quirky to start with until you get used to the language, this story begins in the 1950s and is told from the point of view of a US Air Force wife based at Mildenhall. She and a group of friends run into each others lives back and forth through the decades. One constant is a local woman, Kath, who they first encounter as they wait at dawn for the train carrying the dead King's body from Sandringham to London. Kath's simple life, where a trip to Norwich is a rare event, contrasts sharply with those of the American wives. Kath remains in their lives from beginning to end, adding a common sense viewpoint to their complicated lives. I couldn't put it down.

[Veronica Ford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this book from the cutest used bookstore in Charlotte and then didn’t pick it up for a year because I was so busy. It’s got super short chapters so was easy to read for my goal in 2025 of reading a chapter or two before bed! The plot is about five US Military wives and how originally their lives surrounded around taking care of these men (aka the homemakers of america), but evolved into them pursuing their own dreams. It follows the woman throughout their lives, divorces, children, and affairs! There wasn’t many ups and downs to the plot overall but did a good job showing how the friends stay close even throughout all their changes in life.