After a minor fender-bender, seventy-seven-year-old Pepper Mills is compelled by her worried children to move into an assisted living facility. Once there, she strikes up a romantic relationship with her charming neighbor, and, soon after, finds out she is pregnant.
Enormous Wings begins with a premise so wildly improbable that it is almost unbelievable. The secondary characters (Pepper’s family and new friends) are chaotic and quirky. The doctors overseeing her care range from cartoonishly evil to downright saintly. And yet, despite the book’s absurd foundation and its eccentric cast — or, more likely, because of both — this is a deeply moving story that encourages readers to consider and appreciate our collective humanity.
When a novel opens with a bang, the initial spark sometimes sputters out. But Frankel’s story does the opposite. With every page turned, readers are gifted with new connections and increasingly meaningful insights. When Pepper’s teenage granddaughter Lola finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy, it is up to Pepper to find the strength and the means to accommodate Lola’s decision to terminate it. When Pepper’s octogenarian friend Dot is dying, Pepper must accept Dot’s decisions, too — not only to throw Pepper a baby shower as a front for delivering her last goodbyes, but also to live the days she has left on her own terms for as long as she can.
Choice, of course, is at the heart of this story. By setting it in Texas, with all of the social and political complications that entails, Frankel forces readers to face urgent questions of female autonomy, reproductive rights, privacy, and what it truly means to value life.
When we first meet Pepper, she has been recently stripped of her independence. Her driver’s license has been taken from her, her home has been sold, her belongings condensed. By encumbering her with a geriatric pregnancy, her dwindling autonomy shrinks even further. Between her advanced age, the laws of her state, her doctors’ concerns, and the sentiments of her family and her boyfriend, Pepper is left without many options. Yet, somehow, she maintains her good humor, her empathy, and her capacity for forgiveness.
Pepper may be an unlikely new mother, but she is far from an unlikely hero. With her wide range of life experience (she’s a retired English teacher, a cancer survivor, a divorced mother of three, and a grandmother) comes wisdom, grit, and understanding. She has been through too much already to let a little thing like a surprise pregnancy take her down.
Enormous Wings is a thoughtful, singular story, filled with Frankel’s trademark sparkle and heart.
Lynda Cohen Loigman, a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School, is the author of four novels, including The Two-Family House and The Matchmaker’s Gift. Her most recent novel, The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern, was an Amazon Editor’s Pick, an October 2024 Book of The Month Club selection, and a finalist for the Goodreads 2024 Choice Awards in Historical Fiction.
