The
Ten Year Nap
Meg
Wolitzer
Reviewed by Jenny Salyers
For Amy, life has become
slightly stale. She is a stay at home mom, living a lifestyle slightly
beyond
the means of her one income home. She is the mother of a ten year old,
and
feels looked down on for still being a stay at home mom and not having
returned to the working world. But she has not always been “Mason’s mom
who
doesn’t work”. Once she was a lawyer in a highly known law firm. When
Mason was
born, she set her law degree aside to be with him temporarily. But as
the years
pass, Amy finds her temporary hiatus becoming more and more permanent.
She
finds herself chafing at the roles and compromises that she sees as
becoming
her only identity.
However, Amy is not alone. She
has a support group of women who all find themselves in the same roles.
Wife,
mother, and homemaker in a city which prides itself on its diversity
and fast
paced living where women hold as much power in the working world as
their male
co-workers. During a routine safety walk for Mason’s school, Amy
discovers a
new friend in a woman she only vaguely knows through the parent network
of
Mason’s classmates. As the women witness a horrible event, they form a
fledgling bond of friendship. Amy finds her life becoming filled with
excitement as she steps out of her confining roles into new ones.
However Amy’s new friendship
changes some of her old ones. Until a tragic event swamps her new
friendship,
Amy doesn’t realize how special her old group of friends really is. Can
this
group survive the events that it suddenly faces or will these women
quickly
drift apart?
The Ten Year Nap explores the
ideas of motherhood. Through Amy’s story and the stories of her circle
of
friends we are shown how girls are taught to strive for excellence and
to be
all they can be, only to be bogged down with the roles of motherhood.
The story
is punctuated by flashbacks to their mothers and the events which
shaped each
of these women’s young lives.
Meg Wolitzer presents a strong
story filled with strong and not so strong characters. We
discover two generations of mothers and
their hopes and dreams for their own children. I loved how the story
was split into
smaller sub stories; stories that make you think they are leading away
from each other then at the last moment they turn and re-join in an
unexpected way. This is
not a book I might have picked up if I had seen it at the library.
However, I
enjoyed it very much and plan on seeking out earlier books by this
author.