Through the article in the newspaper Joanna meets Bobbie and then Charmaine. Joanna is appalled that her supposedly liberated husband will consider attending a club that bans women. Walter plans to establish himself within the community by joining the local Men’s Association.
She hopes the article will help her find more forward thinking, like-minded friends.
Her female neighbours seem more interested in maintaining their already immaculate homes than in socialising. Joanna, a freelance photographer, is telling The Welcome Wagon Lady about her interests for the ‘Notes on Newcomers’ section of the local paper. The story opens with Joanna and Walter Eberhart, parents of Pete and Kim, settling into their new suburban home in Stepford having left the dirty and dangerous New York City. This is what the modern politically aware, fully awake, enlightened, assertive woman really, really, really wants: a manicure.” This is no longer the shrill, politically charged climate of 1972 if it’s a choice freely made, then it’s. It’s successful women who torment our pretty, painted narrators women may now choose to be pretty, stylishly dressed, and vapid. “In The Nannie Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada and Confessions of a Shopaholic, in this new generation of ‘chick lit’ novels, men are once more the goal. Have we gone backwards from 1972 when the book was first published? Palahnick writes in this 2011 edition: Given the way many men, and also certain women, are currently regarding today’s young women, this is a story that deserves to, once again, be widely read.
As is often the case, the book offers a much more powerful depiction than that shown on screen. I picked up my copy of the tale having seen the film (the 1975 version) so was familiar with what would unfold. It is a thought-provoking opinion piece but gives away key elements of the plot. Anyone who does not already know the story of The Stepford Wives should skip the introduction by Chuck Palahniuk that opens this edition and read it at the end.
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