The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman (Atria Books)
A compelling blend of “Desperate Housewives” meets The Friday Night Knitting Club, THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CLUB is brimming with sisterly love and conflict as well as the trials and tribulations that buffet its finely etched characters. Here Pearlman creates a world where a diverse dozen women have forged bonds that transcend age and experience, as well as geographical and cultural boundaries. Despite their differences, they are united by great affection and respect for one another, even though they don’t always see eye-to-eye on life or love. And once a year they gather for a ritual that reminds them that, even in the darkest times, they need to celebrate the joy.
Their Christmas cookie club meets on the first Monday in December, a sacrosanct evening in which they exchange holiday cookies, kick off the season, and, most important, reaffirm their commitment to one another. For sixteen years, they’ve shared their secrets, their passions, their yearnings, and their disillusionment, comforting each other through devastating loss and reveling in each other’s blessings. “Head cookie bitch” Marnie hosts the party in her Michigan home each year and as narrator she delivers her friends’ back-stories. Marnie met each woman on her own unexpected journey from young hippie, to widow and single mother, then divorcée to soon-to-be grandmother. Each woman represents a snapshot of her life, her friends a testament to her history.
Club membership ebbs with the flow of their lives, and occasionally someone drops out of the group and makes for a new “cookie virgin.” But the club endures thanks to Marnie’s welcoming spirit and the club “rules” (e.g., no chocolate chip cookie; no plates covered in saran wrap; five years gives you tenure unless you don’t send cookies). So each year, they swap their delights in gentle chaos and then afterward pass dozens of signature cookies to friends, neighbors, babysitters, and manicurists, treating the guests of later Christmas and Chanukah and Solstice gatherings. Marnie describes it as, “A ripple effect of delicious nibbles in the darkest time of year. A ripple in our lives of the joy of each other.”
A light snow is falling this year as the group arrives laden with favorite dishes, bottles of wine, and thirteen dozen creatively wrapped, home-baked cookies (the extra dozen destined for the local hospice). In addition to traditional Christmas cookies, they’ve brought Hanukah, Ramadan and Fortune cookies, plus a revealing story about why it was selected. An eclectic smorgasbord of food, free-flowing wine, and Christmas cheer set the stage for the evening’s emotional roller coaster as the poignant stories of this informal sorority unfold.
One young woman is reeling after discovering the illicit affair between her married father and her best friend. Another is yearning for a child, but her husband won’t commit to fatherhood. While a relative newcomer faces financial ruin, Marnie’s oldest and dearest friend has been dealt every parent’s worst nightmare: the accidental death of her adult son. Through it all Marnie is coping with her own dual stresses: her unmarried pregnant teenage daughter carrying a bi-racial grandchild, and an older married daughter with a high-risk pregnancy after years of infertility. But Marnie knows that “kinship is what you build from the accidents of life” and that she’ll be able to count on anyone in the group in a crisis.
Collectively, these twelve women have lived through it all, forming friendships that are rich and complicated. THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CLUB brings it all to life with warmth and candor, celebrating the bonds of community and inspiring readers to start their own cookie clubs. The result is an invaluable reminder that just like unforeseen tragedy, great happiness can be just around the corner.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ann Pearlman, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee, is the author of Infidelity: A Memoir. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is her first novel.