Two sisters experience the 60s. That's pretty much it.

If you've read Marilyn French's [b:The Women's Room|46456|The Women's Room|Marilyn French|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1494520646l/46456._SY75_.jpg|1628511], or Sarah Davidson's [b:Loose Change: Three Women of the Sixties|338364|Loose Change Three Women of the Sixties|Sara Davidson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391134202l/338364._SY75_.jpg|328769] you already know how this goes: young white, middle class women move from the 50's American Dream suburbs to college, drugs, sexual experimentation, a flirtation with civil rights advocacy and Vietnam war protests to eventual dull respectability, divorce, and life with their embittered children. Weiner is a good writer, and the plot moves briskly along but the cliches and stereotypes flew so thick and fast I felt like shouting "INCOMING!!" at every end-of-chapter reveal.

What annoys me about books like this is their claim to depict A Portrait of American Society when they are really a portrait of a very narrow slice (white middle class suburban) that is utterly convinced it matters more, and is more significant than anyone else. Take Weiner's depiction of the civil rights movement. The two protagonists demonstrate their "good person" bonafides by having black friends in defiance of their comically racist mother ("Birds of a feather flock together"). They picket, and attend the occasional SNCC meeting, but you never get any sense of urgency, or of the dangers black people faced from Jim Crow or from being in the movement. Weiner's characters never even explain why civil rights was so important to black dignity, safety, and economic survival, just platitudes about how "everyone should be able to love who they want and live where they want". The black characters are hollow vessels into which the white characters pour their angst; not people with their own stories to tell.

Likewise the women's movement is presented solely from the viewpoint of dreary suburban housewives tired of giving up their careers and having to fetch their husbands' drinks. This is a problem, but again, Weiner ignores (or is perhaps not aware of) the significance of women's rights for poor women; women who were trapped in low income jobs, not allowed to get credit on their own, and forced to endure sexual harassment from predatory bosses. In Weiner's novel, the only women who experience sexual harassment are a teen from her uncle, (her mother needs his money, but they aren't destitute), and a middle class young woman interning with a famous author. Weiner does depict the terror of unexpected pregnancy before Roe v. Wade, but again, middle class finances solve the problem.

Weiner is stronger in exploring the pain of being gay pre-Stonewall; she has stated that Jo, the housewife with grown daughters who begins a later life same sex relationship, is based on her own mother. Jo's desperate struggle to hold on to Shelley, the woman she loves, and her heartbreak at Shelley's betrayal are gut wrenching, as is Jo's acquiescence to a heterosexual marriage because "it was just easier". But here again, the worst Jo and Shelley ever experience is...unpleasantness; social disapprobation, gossip, family disapproval. No one is ever threatened with violence, or disowned for being gay. No one loses a job, or is arrested, or driven to suicide for being gay.

Weiner wants to write about the influence of the 60s social movements, but she doesn't seem to understand their true impact beyond changing tastes in music and home decor. Her conclusion suggests that progress has been limited: after all, (wealthy) husbands still pressure their wives into not working, creepy men still harass young women, people still sneer at gay couples at dinner parties, or stare at interracial families. But this is a profound minimization of what actually changed: of the revolutionary wallop to a culture that had openly accepted racist, misogynist, and homophobic violence, exploitation, and degradation. Despite recent backsliding and regional variations, the US of 2019 is overall a safer, happier place for women, people of color and LGBTQ folks than in 1950, and not just because they get to marry into nice white families. The 60s were not a fad to be mocked or nostalgically celebrated with bell-bottoms and tie-dye; they were the moment when a significant portion of the population began to be treated as human beings and full citizens for the first time.

Mrs. Everything - Likewise Book Reviews

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