Books

In the beginning of Meg Wolitzer's latest novel, The Ten-Year Nap, alarm clocks awaken young mothers all across the nation.

Underneath the cacophony of the ringing clocks, Ms. Wolitzer plants a not-too-subtle message that it is time for these women to rejoin the world from which they abruptly retreated.

The novel centers on Amy Lamb and three of her friends, all raising pre-teen boys who attend the same tony private school in New York City. The women, all in their early 40s, are the beneficiaries of the women's rights movement. They are well-educated, intelligent and had careers as lawyers, movie scouts, artists and statistical analysts – until they married, had children and tossed their briefcases aside.

Bonded now by motherhood, the women gather at a local coffee shop. It's Amy's new friendship with a mother who personifies having it all – a great job, a rich husband, a child and apparently a young British lover on the side – that marks the true beginning of their wake-up calls. The friends are suddenly forced to take stock of their lives, their fading ambitions and sagging marriages as each slowly emerges from the cocoon in which she has been ensconced.

There are times when the story seems a bit too familiar. It is told from a decidedly white, middle-class point of view. This is, after all, a phenomenon that has been chronicled repeatedly in the media: a generation that tossed away fancy jobs to raise children.

But Ms. Wolitzer adds some interesting layers. Interspersed between the women's stories are their mothers. One, once a budding actress, commits suicide. Another becomes a historical novelist and feminist. One mother slaves in a hot restaurant kitchen while another forges a successful party-theme business with her husband. Woven in each tale are the mothers' dreams for their daughters.

Ms. Wolitzer throws in a few famous female figures for us to gnaw on. There's Georgette Magritte, the wife of the artist Rene Magritte; former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; and Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci. It's an odd grouping that eventually makes sense because each woman defines differently what work means.

Ms. Wolitzer is a capable storyteller. The novel is entertaining and dead-on. Whether you're a suburban mom tooling around in a minivan or a sophisticated urbanite with a stroller that costs more than some folks' cars, there are familiar elements that will make you snicker or grimace.

In the end, though, you are grateful that Amy is finally awake. As Ms. Wolitzer writes, "One day you just woke up, and there was somewhere that you needed to be."

Karen M. Thomas is a freelance writer in Arlington.

Meg Wolitzer

(Riverhead, $24.95)

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