The Wednesday Sisters

Publisher Ballantine, July 2008

Meg Waite Clayton might have titled her novel “The Wednesday Sisters Writing Society,” except that it is as much about shared lives—children and laughter, illness and eccentricity, miscarriage and divorce—as it is about shared literary dreams.  THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS begins in the late 1960s and brilliantly and movingly tells the intertwined stories of five women who support one another through the best and worst of times. It may remind some readers of Marilyn French’s 1970s classic novel, The Woman’s Room or more contemporary bestsellers such as Rebecca Well’s Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and Cassandra King’s The Same Sweet Girls.

“Richly intelligent, deeply felt and incandescently original….”
— Caroline Leavitt, author of Girls in Trouble and Coming Back to Me

“I gave my heart to The Wednesday Sisters. I simply could not put it down.”
— Amanda Eyre Ward author of How to be Lost

Long before there were book clubs and play dates, there were the Wednesday Sisters- a group of women whose shared love of literature transports them above the pains and pitfalls of ordinary life. Each character has an intriguing secret and a rich interior life that drew me into the story and held me there. This remarkable group of women demonstrates that no matter what period of history in which we live, no matter what race, creed or class we are, no matter what pains we endure, our one unifying salvation can be books. And this book reminded me of why I love to read.
— Lolly Winston, author of Good Grief and Happiness Sold Separately

“I read The Wednesday Sisters in one delicious gulp. With a smart, entrancing voice, Meg Waite Clayton sweeps us into the world of the tumultuous 1960s and beyond, and gives us the gift of five young women coming into their own as friends, mothers, wives and writers. The Wednesday Sisters takes their writing group as its core, and up until the last page, I found myself fervently rooting for each of them as if they were my friends too.”
— Lalita Tademy, author of Red River and Cane River

“The Wednesday Sisters, a beautifully written story of women’s friendship, inspired me the way my closest friends do. It made me laugh. It made me cry. Most of all, it enriched my life. If you’ve ever had a best friend, buy a copy for her.”
–Masha Hamilton, author of The Camel Bookmobile, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, and The Distance Between Us

Meg Waite Clayton gives us a group of spunky women – mostly young, married mothers — who make the unlikely decision in 1967 to form a writers’ group. Their diverse journeys over the next years in their writing and in their lives add up to a compelling and deeply moving testament to the power of women’s friendships. I simply couldn’t put THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS down until I’d turned the last page.
— Ellen Baker, author of Keeping the House