I have been putting off writing this review of Nookietown by V.C. Chickering for several days, mostly because I am not sure where I stand on the book. While some parts of it were entertaining, some parts were enraging, and I felt like I had to collect my thoughts on it before I wrote them down.
Here’s the premise: in a suburban New Jersey town, a bunch of married women friends sat at dinner one night complaining about having to keep up with their husbands’ sex drives. They were tired, they said, and just weren’t up to having to satisfy their husband’s needs. Meanwhile, the one divorced woman at the table, Lucy, complained about the opposite problem: not having a man in her life to sleep with. Then came the inevitable peanut butter-and-chocolate epiphany – why not have Lucy sleep with one of the husbands so that the wife doesn’t have to? Then everyone would be satisfied.
Lucy, incredulous at first, warms to the idea and makes an “appointment” with her friend Nancy’s husband Ted. The appointment goes so well that Nancy and Lucy decide to go into business, matching up sexually frustrated husbands with needy divorcees. There are a lot of rules – no money can change hands (but the divorcees enjoy all sorts of perks like free yardwork, homemade meals, and good deals on cars); no one can get emotionally involved; no one can get pregnant. The business takes off, and by the middle of the book, all of the people enrolled in The Program are walking around happy and harmonious.
What could go wrong? Well, a million things, and of course they do, and the second half of the book is about Lucy trying to put the pieces of her life together after it implodes.
So here’s what’s good about Nookietown. It can be pretty funny, and there are lots of wry observations about suburban married life, dating after divorce, and, of course, sex. It’s thought-provoking, for sure. And it’s a pretty breezy read. It certainly made my commute go by faster.
Yet Nookietown also me angry. Chickering tries really, really hard to establish that what Lucy and the other divorcees is doing is not prostitution, and that they are in control and in fact benefiting just as much as the wives and husbands. But Lucy – who vacillates between wounded ex-wife, devoted mother, oversexed woman-on-the-prowl, and single woman with low self esteem – ultimately turned into a pretty anti-feminist woman. She was passive, letting things happen to her without much affirmation or choice, or even the realization that she could say no. On the other, she jumped into The Program with desperation to be with someone (anyone!), which bothered me. She didn’t have much respect for herself, and she didn’t have much respect for the men she was with either. She was insecure around the few available (single) men, dismissive of the married men in the program, and oh, I forgot to mention the married man she was involved with while all of this was going on… AND her desire to have another baby!
Sigh.
I think you probably know by now whether this book appeals to you or not. It can be a funny, interesting read at times, but it can also be irritating at the same time. There is also a lot of sex in this book so if you’re not comfortable with that, then don’t read it.
I listened to Nookietown on audio. The narrator, Julia Duvall, was very good. I kept wondering what she must have been thinking as she recorded the audio. I guess if you’re an audiobook narrator who performs a lot of romance novels (which she appears to do), you get used to it.
Mixed bag, Nookietown was. Still glad I read it.