Enormous Wings

A 77-year-old Texan grapples with the astonishing news that she’s pregnant in the amusing latest from Frankel (Family Family). Pepper Mills, a straight-talking Brooklyn native, blames her silly name on her ex-husband, Roger, whose surname she took when they married. After getting into a fender bender, she loses her driver’s license and reluctantly moves into the same continuing care community where Roger lives. She starts up a new relationship with a charming British man named Moth and describes their new home as “like moving back into your college dorm, if your college dorm had been a Hampton Inn.” Feeling queasy and lightheaded, she sees a doctor, wondering if she might have dementia, only to learn that she’s pregnant. After the initial shock, the doctor assures her the pregnancy will probably terminate naturally. While she wonders if her body can handle giving birth or an abortion, which is illegal in Texas, word gets out about a pregnant septuagenarian, stirring the public into a frenzy over what she should do. Frankel blends humor and gravitas in her portrait of an expectant mother who’s also facing her own mortality. Fans of the author’s quirky family stories about hot-button issues will find much to enjoy. (May)