Laurie Graham: The future homemakers of America

By CHERYL SUCHER

Spouses of American military personnel are rarely seen or heard but for patriotic displays of troop-farewelling or somber services where they stoically receive the flag-draped coffins of their fallen partners.

These images are as ancient and familiar as Homer's Odyssey, but few spouses are as virtuous and loyal as Odysseus' Penelope.

Laurie Graham's novel, The Future Homemakers Of America gives boisterous voice to one such American Air Force wife, Peggy Graham, who with her infant daughter Crystal, follows her young husband Vern from Travis, Texas to Norfolk, England to join the 96th Bomber Wing Squadron during the height of the Red Scare and the Korean War.

There she befriends Betty Gillis, her former Topperwein High classmate, then president of the local Future Homemakers of America, wild red-haired Lois Moon, adventurous Audrey Rudman and naive young Gayle Jackson.

Isolated from the Fens' war-ravaged poverty and rationed food stores by the American military's relative affluence, they venture off base to join the crowds watching the train bearing King George VI's majestic funeral cortege.

There they meet a lively young village woman, Kath Pharoah, whom they befriend against spousal advice. Following Kath into her harsh world opens their eyes to dark secrets that ultimately lead to self-knowledge and costly independence, bonding them in a four-decade friendship that transcends time, place, marriage and even the Air Force itself.

Though Future Homemakers Of America often reads like a cross between Designing Women and Coronation Street with a bit of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood thrown in, it sparkles with spunky repartee and subtle wisdom.

Structured by reproductions of newsprint headlines concerning milestones in the lives of the British royalty and the Kennedys, Future Homemakers Of America offers compelling insight into the harrowing daily struggles of pilots' wives as they wait to learn whether their husbands have returned safely from their latest sorties.

Graham's narrative also focuses on life after the military, itself fraught with disappointment, resignation and failure.

There is a particular poignancy to reading this book during this time of uncertainty, loss, tragedy and war. It gives voice to the hidden minions whose personal sacrifices are often interred beneath national rhetoric and heralded glory that is often too short-lived.

HarperCollins

$31.95