Life, Death, and Doughnuts

It is 1944 and the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School in New York City is teeming with women. Over doughnuts, Sarah, Mitzi, Iris, and Ellie form a quirky quartet of secretaries-to-be. What ensues is a lifelong friendship carried out primarily through monthly dinner parties composed of the four women and their tag-along husbands. Over a span of 50 years, children are born, hearts are broken, a president resigns, a war is lost, careers peak and crash, weight is gained and lost and gained again, and all the while food is burned, fondued, flambéed, whipped up, and brought in. Sadly, but not uncommonly, the husbands pass away one by one, revealing the unfortunate fact that most women outlive their mates. The girlfriends' individual responses to widowhood illustrate that "moving on" can have a host of meanings and that grief has no time frame. As the friends face downtime, distance, and loss, each discovers that a 50-year friendship, a healthy dose of humor, and an occasional doughnut can trump whatever else life drops in your path. Karin Kasdin has authored four books, the most recent of which is Watsamatta U: A Get-A-Grip Guide to Staying Sane through Your Child's College Application Process. She currently writes a parenting blog for The Faster Times, which can be viewed at thefastertimes.com. Kasdin grew up in Rochester, New York, and now lives and writes in Bucks County, Pennsylvania where she and her husband have raised three sons.