As I listened to Becky Ann Baker’s wonderful narration of Laurie Frankel’s book Enormous Wings, I couldn’t help but think, What would I do in this situation?
Topics Worth Discussing
The protagonist, Pepper Mills, is 77, newly and unwillingly relocated to the Vista View Retirement Community in Austin, Texas. Her grown children strongly suggest (insist) she move there after a slight fender bender; they explain that it is for her own good.
Loss of Control
The last thing any of them, including Pepper, expect is that she might fall in love … and the very last thing that anyone would expect is that she would become pregnant! The book spotlights the escalating loss-of-control: what begins as a personal upheaval (leaving her home) soon becomes a medical mystery, how could she possibly have fallen pregnant? Well, she knows how it happened, just not how it could have possibly happened to her, a 77-year-old woman who has long since passed menopause!
Once the secret is out, she and her unborn child become a national spectacle. Pepper fights a seemingly losing battle to keep her situation her own, as people from the press, advocates from various groups, and protesters each want to make Pepper and her baby mean something, and insist that this ‘miracle’ should belong to them.
For Your Own Good
Pepper is a sharp, wry, ex-English teacher, who still struggles with people’s poor use of the language. Her three adult children, (who all absolutely mean well) find that their protectiveness is curdling into control.
Pepper’s fears feel real; the questions monumental: What does one do when your children start making decisions “for your own good?” What happens when your body becomes a subject of medical and public scrutiny rather than your own domain? The retirement-community placement she never chose is the quiet, mundane version of the same violation the pregnancy makes literal and extreme … autonomy eroding by inches long before it’s stripped by headlines.
The Fate of Miracles
Frankel’s title borrows from Gabriel García Márquez’s A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, and the parallel runs deeper than the title. In Márquez’s story, a miraculous, strange old man is treated first as a curiosity, then commodified; put on display, monetized, drained of wonder until he’s just an inconvenience to be endured.
Pepper undergoes a similar arc: her pregnancy is a “miracle” that immediately becomes exploitation; she’s wanted as a pro-choice poster child “but only if she looks miserable;” she’s courted by press and picketed by protesters until her actual personhood is buried under what she represents to everyone else.
Both stories ask: What happens to a miracle once an audience decides to own it?
The Narration Is Spectacular
Becky Ann Baker doesn’t just voice Pepper, she animates the entire ensemble beautifully, with a genuinely wide range, moving credibly between accents and generations. Baker’s humor and control of tone are essential to keeping the material, which becomes heavy at times (one’s autonomy, aging, abortion) buoyant rather than didactic.
For a book this reliant on comic timing to carry its politics and important questions about elder and body autonomy, the audio format isn’t just incidental, it is essential. I found Baker’s narration the perfect way to experience this novel.
Author’s Note: Please note, there are references to abortion and political themes that some readers may find difficult.
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Let’s Have a Conversation:
What would you do if you suddenly found yourself pregnant (or found yourself fathering a child) at your age now? How would you react if your children started taking away your independence “for your own good”? How did you feel about each group trying to exploit Pepper’s situation? Did you feel a strong alliance to any particular group? If you read the book, how did you feel by the end of the book?
