The Weekly Pour: Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel
Good afternoon Meridian book lovers, TBL with your Weekly Pour — and oh, do we have a good one for you this week.
This week we're diving into Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel — a novel with a premise so unexpected it stops you mid-sentence, and writing so warm and sharp you'll want to slow down and stay in it. This is Frankel’s sixth novel, and it might be her most audacious — a story that opens with a premise so absurd it shouldn't work, and then proceeds to work completely. It is funny and furious and full of heart, and it asks questions that feel urgently, uncomfortably present: Who gets to make decisions about a woman's body? What does it mean to be truly alive? And what happens when the world refuses to let one extraordinary woman simply figure that out in peace?
Pull up a glass. Pour something effervescent. This one earns it.
About the Book
Pepper Mills is seventy-seven years old, a retired English teacher with a gift for dry wit, a low tolerance for nonsense, and absolutely no intention of enjoying the Vista View Retirement Community in suburban Austin, Texas. That, of course, is her daughters' plan—not hers. But then she meets Moth (a baffling nickname for Timothy), a dashing British neighbor who somehow makes the whole thing bearable. Before long, there is love. And then, following the love: exhaustion, nausea, and confusion. Her family fears cancer, stroke, dementia. The tests reveal something far more astonishing. Pepper Mills, age seventy-seven, is pregnant.
As word gets out, everyone descends on Vista View—the press, activists, medical researchers, well-meaning relatives, and complete strangers—all demanding a piece of Pepper's extraordinary situation. Some decisions are hers to make. Some, in the state of Texas, are not. Enormous Wings is a novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, about mortality and the unexpected, about what it means to love and be loved at any age.
Frankel's title is an allusion to the Gabriel García Márquez story 'A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,' and that lineage suits the book beautifully: magical in premise, grounded in humanity, and impossible to look away from. A May 2026 Indie Next pick, praised by Oprah Daily, Ms. Magazine, and starred reviews across the board.
Read It If You Love...
Women's fiction · Reproductive rights · Humor with heart · Laurie Frankel's This Is How It Always Is · Family Family · Absurdist literary fiction · Books about aging, love, and female agency
Why We Love It
Laurie Frankel has built a career writing about families navigating extraordinary circumstances with humor, grace, and radical compassion—from This Is How It Always Is to Family Family. Enormous Wings is her boldest and most timely novel yet. Pepper is one of the most memorable protagonists in recent fiction: erudite, hilarious, and fiercely herself at every turn. The novel is not a polemic. It is, as one reviewer beautifully put it, not angry or preachy—just an honest account of what happens to one extraordinary woman in a very specific place with very specific laws. That honesty is what makes it land so hard.
The Pour: Champagne Elderflower Fizz
For an unexpected heroine who discovers that life has one more astonishing chapter, we're pairing Enormous Wings with a Champagne Elderflower Fizz—because some occasions demand something effervescent, surprising, and undeniably celebratory, even when complicated.
Base: Brut Champagne or dry Prosecco—something with genuine sparkle
Add: A generous pour of St-Germain elderflower liqueur
Top with: A splash of fresh grapefruit juice for a hint of gorgeous bitterness
Garnish: An edible flower or a curled grapefruit ribbon
The elderflower is romantic and unexpected—something you wouldn't anticipate finding at this stage of a story, or a glass, or a life. The champagne is the occasion itself. The grapefruit is reality, just enough to keep things honest. Like Pepper, this drink is more complex than it looks and more joyful than you'd expect.
Non-alcoholic option: Sparkling water with a splash of elderflower cordial and fresh grapefruit juice. Garnish the same. You deserve the flower.
Happy Reading (and Sipping!)
The Book Lounge Crew
