Food, Sex and Money

Opening Sentence: "...Once, a long time ago when she was very much younger, Bonnie had had sex for money..."

I am a fan of Liz Byrski and this book hasn't disappointed me. The main characters, as always, are real women, women who will never see 50 again.

After the death of her husband, Bonnie has returned to Australia a wealthy woman and moved back in with her elderly mother. Bonnie arranges to meet up with her two best friends from school, who she hasn’t seen for forty years. Fran is a food writer, who is struggling to cope with her work, her finances, her ailing mother and her children; while Sylvia is trapped in an increasingly loveless marriage to an Anglican minister.

The lunch triggers changes in the trio's lives that none of the show more women could have envisioned that day. The plot concentrates mostly on those changes and the challenges to facilitate those changes; challenges which are a clever blend of those faced by women "of a certain age" and those faced by women no matter what their age. Each woman came alive for me, each had her own set of strengths and weaknesses and I found myself relating to the various mother/daughter relationships on more than one occasion. One in particular was the re-occurring theme of "bullying." Even when daughters are all grown up they can still make life very uncomfortable for you if you don't fall into their idea of what you should or should not, be doing. show less

With at times unnerving accuracy (I wondered when she’d met me), Liz Byrski examines the lives of Bonnie, Fran and Sylvia , old school friends who have met up again after 40 years. Now in their 50s and 60s, they embark on a creative venture that offers each a genuine second chance. Its success, and the friends’ ultimate happiness, depends on each daring to abandon old prejudices and decades of often crippling emotional baggage.

Byrski's books explore the bonds of family and friendship from the perspective of ordinary women - people like me. I can relate to every one of them. I laughed with them; and I cried with them. Byrski is simply one of the best new writers I have discovered in years.

I'm a bit over Liz Byrski. All her novels follow the same formula. I'm not totally averse to the "chook lit" genre because I'm in the over-50 target demographic. The issues raised are the sorts of things that people my age have to deal with: your parents getting dementia and dying; some of your own peers starting to die; your children getting serious about their own relationships and perhaps starting to have their own children; problems in your own relationships; getting near the end of your work life, etc. The trouble with Byrski is that she tries to get every issue into every book and she deals with every issue at a pretty superficial level. She always has a big cast of characters with at least three or four featuring most show more prominently. She also write in a very self-consciously "Australian" genre, like Di Morrissey (who writes in what I'd call the romance-on-an-outback-sheep-station genre). I wonder if Tourism Australia sponsors their work? I think I'll stick with novels that offer greater depth and less breadth in the future. show less

It's been almost forty years since the three girls went their separate ways after finishing school but after the death of her husband, Bonnie moves back to Australia & reaches out to Fran & Sylvia. Together again they share their past lives, secrets & fears.
This wasn't my favourite Byrski book. I love her frank writing style & it touches on a lot of important issues for older women. But I kept on catching my mind wandering on this read which made it a bit hard to keep track of the characters & their parents, children etc. I also thought it was a bit long as well as just plodding on it's way. I actually got a bit bored in the end.

3 women who went to school together, meet up again almost 30 years later. Explores the changes in their lives, expectations - with humour and a touch of reality.

Moments of truth that were touching. Long patches of borning. Could have been cut back to a short story.

Not read yet