THE GOOD WIFE, published, 2003, tells the story of a politician's dutiful but bright and independent wife -- shades of Michele Obama today. She struggles with her desires and needs and loves, and her promise to help her husband succeed in his quest for first a seat and then higher position in the British Parliament. She has a very strong attachment to her father, a widower, and his Italian birthplace and family wine business. She is his assistant in the family enterprise while raising one daughter. The crux of the story is her struggle to combine her roles as a supportive wife, mother of a post-college, on-her-own daughter, and heir to her father's wine business. My interest held while she sorted her priorities and found her path. I think yours might also.
THAT CERTAIN AGE, published in 2004, is a novel that meshes the stories of two women from different generations whose lives are separated in time by perhaps 50 years, but whose stories join at the very end of the book. Here we have the contrast between a wife of an World War II pilot and mother of two children and the wife of an attorney for the downtrodden in the 90s, who is a highly successful fashion consultant. The life of the pilot's wife is completely taken up with husband, two children, home, friends and living the "appropriate" life of an English lady. The more modern fashion expert struggles with her growing success in TV and publications and her husband's desire for a family. Both women deal with temptations, both have to weigh priorities. Again, Buchan offers us insight and wisdom, along with the story. Women's lives seem always to include issues of choice, struggle, role, and are usually seasoned with "what about me" thoughts. We constantly try to balance responsibilities and desires. The women in Ms. Buchan's books have something to say, I think, that might help us, whether we're young women or Silver-Vixen-aged ladies. These Buchan ladies are wise women. You will enjoy meeting them.
Donna Doberstein, December 2008
