Thank you to everyone who tuned into our live video book launch for Fallout by Eleanor Anstruther!
In-person is magic!
I hosted Eleanor Anstruther, Alisa Kennedy Jones and friends ( Substackers, Beth Lisogorsky, Good Humor by CK Steefel, Meg Oolders attended) at my home in Boston to celebrate her new book, Fallout.
Eleanor did a reading, as you can watch on the video above and these fun Notes clips and Instagram!!, and we were hooked by the story of a fifteen year old girl running away from home to join a women’s peace camp in the early eighties United Kingdom. Fallout, is based on a major moment in the UK, the Greenham Common protest. The all-women (30,000-70,000 of them) peace camp at a nuclear base from 1981-2000 in the UK is practically unknown here in the US. But, not for long.
FIRST BOOK WE WILL READ: FALLOUT
By Eleanor Anstruther
Fallout is the book to start our club with, ladies. These are crazy times, and so were the 1980s. We were around the same age as the protagonist, Bridget, is in the book, fifteen, in the early 80s. We can relate to the characters in Fallout now as grown women looking back and as mothers of girls, or as women in protest. The Greenham Commons history is itself a major character in the book and something we women should know about and share with our kids and friends.
About FALLOUT:
“A radical daughter. A closeted father. A prim mother turned protester. One runaway girl sets a family on fire—and lights the way to liberation.
In the bleak winter of 1982, fifteen-year-old Bridget has had enough. Enough of Thatcher’s Britain, enough of being invisible, and enough of her family’s secrets. Armed with little more than a sharp tongue and a fierce sense of justice, she runs away from her suburban life to join the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp—one of the most iconic protest movements in British history.
But Bridget’s disappearance doesn’t just blow open her own life. It sends shockwaves through her fractured family: her distant, conservative mother, who’s about to fall headlong into a love affair she never saw coming, and her father—a man with secrets of his own, who’s spent a lifetime hiding in plain sight.
Set at the unlikely intersection of nuclear disarmament and personal awakening, FALLOUT is a fearless, darkly funny exploration of identity, family, and midlife reinvention. With an irreverent bite that evokes Fleabag, the emotional complexity of Bad Sisters, and the political urgency of Milkman.” Simon and Schuster
I adore Eleanor’s writing and was hooked when I read her memoir, A Memoir in 65 Postcards & The Recovery Diaries. She is a lot cooler than you or I and has survived to tell her own story.
When shall we meet? Below is a poll to see about timing. You need to order the book here and read it. We don’t want to wait too long! The actual meeting we can do a Zoom and in person, like the book launch. I’m hoping Eleanor can join in, too!
MEET ME IN THE COMMENTS!
What do you feel about protests? Have you gone to any lately? Are they worth the effort? Why?
PS: Graduation is coming! Gift Ideas?
Grad Gifts and Spring Brings
Happy Mother’s Day! A little late. I hope you and yours had a wonderful day.
PPS: Bebe’s new song!!
PPPs: New Premium “Notes from My Bed” post coming next week!
