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The eponymous nightclub in London is gunky indeed: squalid, frequented by low-life characters. Why is Jules still working there after she and Leon, the club's owner, split up? Because It feels like home to her--dysfunctional and sad. Then a cute young bartender named Nim is hired. She's also a mess, but Jules befriends her and a relationship of sorts develops. In a one-night stand, Nim gets pregnant (by Leon, of course). But Nim knows Jules desperately wants a child. She goes through with the pregnancy but disappears right after the birth-- a familiar pattern. It's grim for Jules, alone with a newborn baby that refuses to bond with her. Perseverance furthers, and there's reconnection in the wings. It won't be conventional by any means, but love takes all forms. I sensed that early on, which encouraged me to keep wading through so much—yes—gunk. Dark, for sure, but moving.
The many members of the Rubenstein clan take every interfamilial wrangle very personally. Starting with three sisters; Helen and Sylvia are tending their acerbic sister Jeanne who is taking a long time to die. Dueling apple cakes symbolize the breach between the two which continues throughout the rest of their lives. In subsequent chapters we discover who else is at odds with whom, from stressed marriages to disappointment in their children's trajectories. Even carrying out Jeanne's last wishes is fiercely debated. Thank heaven for freewheeling young Phoebe who busks her way around the country with her like-minded boyfriend and the violin she inherited from Jeanne. I always enjoy juicy dysfunction in action. Here it's leavened with lively Jewish seasoning.
Celia works for the phone company, calling customers whose bills are in arrears. She comes home to husband Drew, an emergency room technician. The regular routine suits her until a colleague is murdered, and she's driven to find out how this happened. It was love gone very wrong, and she starts questioning her own little life. Is it really love that Drew provides, or is it his overweening drive to control her? Drew's mother Augusta also wields lots of power, and Celia realizes she has to get out from under them. She who always seemed so meek starts to reclaim herself and makes considerable waves. Eventually she devises a clever, daring plan to gain freedom. So who's the evil genius here? Drew meets the criteria with his manipulative ways, but it takes one to know one. San Francisco setting, mid '70s, surprisingly funny.
On the brink of her marriage in New Jersey, Riley is lamenting her lack of family. She was adopted by an American couple, but they died in an accident. Her only living relative is her grandmother, now in a nursing home with dementia. Among her grandmother's things, she finds a mysterious birth certificate THAT leads her to Ireland where she discovers the secret of her origin. Her birthmother had been sent to a home for fallen girls, where an intrepid nun, Sister Margaret, surreptitiously fought the punishing regimen and eventually smuggled some of the girls out to freedom. I've read other books about these dreadful places from the '50s , and this one brings the story into bold relief. We will not forget brave and canny Sister Margaret and her ilk.
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