Lore Segal celebrates with humor and grace the friendships that stand the test of time and the particular eccentricities of aging in Ladies' Lunch and Other Stories. Featuring fictional pieces, some collected from earlier publications, as well as previously unpublished memoir excerpts, Ladies' Lunch begins with nine interconnected dramas starring five sassy New York dames who have met for lunch every other month, for more than 30 years, at one another's well-appointed Manhattan apartments.
Ruth, Bridget, Farah, Lotte, and Bessie possess an enviable air of freedom about them. Appetites may be waning but their senses of humor remain firmly intact. Their spouses are long gone, apart from Bessie's second husband, Colin, whom no one can stand. Professional career women back in their day, the friends cheerfully attend shivas, wakes, and funerals, "the cocktail parties of the old" where they drink martinis and sometimes forget that they are not at an actual party.
Now in her 90s, Segal (Shakespeare's Kitchen; Half the Kingdom) is the celebrated author of novels, short stories, and children's books written over the course of six prolific decades. In "Pneumonia Chronicles," one of the half dozen pieces in the latter ("Other Stories") part of the collection, Segal describes in entertaining, tragicomic detail an extended hospital stay during the Covid-19 pandemic and her unlikely friendship with a young male nurse that blossoms over their shared love of Anton Chekhov's short stories. As she marvels at this unexpected bonding, Segal's joy underscores a perspective that is the key to graceful, courageous aging and that permeates this entire entertaining collection. --Shahina Piyarali, reviewer