Enormous Wings, Laurie Frankel
Enormous Wings, Laurie Frankel
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Enormous Wings
A Novel

Author: Laurie Frankel

Narrator: Becky Ann Baker

Unabridged: 9 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/05/2026


Synopsis

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author Laurie Frankel, an exuberant and timely new novel.

This program is read by actor Becky Ann Baker, who has appeared in Freaks and Geeks and Girls.

At seventy-seven, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas—that would be her three grown children—but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting, and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant.

As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, belly-rubbers and rubber-neckers all descending on Vista View while Pepper struggles to determine her next move. Soon she has some hard decisions to make—and some she’s not allowed to make.

Enormous Wings is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It’s about what happens when you don’t get to choose anymore. It’s about motherhood and family, sex and love and friendship, and how those bedrocks—even so late in the day—can still change, and then change everything.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company

About Laurie Frankel

Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of the novels Family Family, One Two Three, Goodbye for Now, The Atlas of Love, and the Reese’s Book Club Pick This Is How It Always Is. Frankel lives in Seattle with her husband, daughter, and border collie.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Christopher on February 22, 2026

ADVANCE REVIEW COPY – RELEASE DATE: MAY 5, 2026 The unfortunately-named Pepper Mills, seventy-seven years old, has just been admitted to the sprawling Vista View nursing home in suburban Austin, Texas. There she meets Moth (a strange derivative of “Timothy”) a dashing Brit just next door. A car wash......more

Goodreads review by Anderson on August 15, 2025

The immensely talented Laurie Frankel has truly outdone herself with ENORMOUS WINGS! I cannot think of a better title for this deep, extraordinary novel - it is big and bold, thoughtful and wise. It is a powerful story of found family, female agency, growing old and staying young. Frankel’s cast of......more

Goodreads review by Laura on October 28, 2025

Thank you to Henry Holt & Co. and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 5th, 2025. I wanted to like this book — Laurie Frankel is a fun and sharp writer and I loved Family, Family. She excels at writing families who ar......more

Goodreads review by Celine on March 05, 2026

I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect for this to hammer at my heart the way that it did. WHEW.......more

Goodreads review by Laurel on February 28, 2026

Loved this. My suggestion: go into this one blind. Don’t read the blurb or too many reviews. I didn’t know anything about it except the author (Laurie Frankel!) and I just love how the plot unfolded for me without knowing where it was going. Thanks to NetGalley for an opportunity to read this advanc......more


Quotes

Praise for Enormous Wings

“Only the fearless, funny, and endlessly inventive Frankel could have written this one-of-a-kind yet amazingly down-to-earth book about a woman’s right to choose.”
Oprah Daily

“Brilliantly makes the impossible plausible, intricately collaging questionable medical treatments, geriatric sexuality, teenage pregnancy, women’s fertility and autonomy, religious and political oversteps, and so much more. . . . Frankel is poised (again) to make plenty of readers uncomfortable while also offering entertainment and illumination.”
Booklist (starred review)

“In the hands of a lesser writer, this story would flounder, but Frankel’s deft understanding of nuance makes each argument, interaction, and forced conversation between the characters into an epiphany for modern readers to ponder and appreciate. VERDICT: An unusual premise, supported by great writing, makes this novel work.”
Library Journal

“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.”
Publishers Weekly

Enormous Wings is a brilliant, hilarious, dynamic, and all-consuming story of freedom, choice, aging, and the lengths we will go to for ourselves and our families. Laurie Frankel has written a masterpiece of humanity with just the right dash of weirdness. This is the ultimate interrogation of abortion access in a red state set in the most unexpected place: a senior living community. I am obsessed, moved, and utterly awed.”
—Leila Mottley, New York Times bestselling author of Nightcrawling and The Girls Who Grew Big

“Laurie Frankel is such a funny, smart writer, and I fell in love with 77-year-old Pepper Mills, our charming and resilient main character. A delicious novel of second chances that will warm you from your heart all the way down to your feet.”
—Annie Hartnett, nationally bestselling author of The Road to Tender Hearts

“Laurie Frankel is one of the best novelists working today. Her new novel, Enormous Wings, is a funny and humane testament to the miracle of love, family, and being alive in the world.”
—Lauren Grodstein, author of A Dog in Georgia and We Must Not Think of Ourselves

Enormous Wings is miraculous—and enormous—in more ways than one. It's a novel of profound strength and compassion and levity and power, extraordinary in its premise, its storytelling, and its willingness to stand for something. The rare novel that is unabashedly political, gloriously entertaining, and deeply humane. A vital novel for our time.”
—Nina LaCour, nationally bestselling author of Yerba Buena and Meet Me in the Garden

Praise for Laurie Frankel

“Frankel is a first-rate storyteller; her prose style is witty, thoughtful, and warm.”
The Seattle Times

“Frankel is brilliant at addressing social issues…with witty writing; serious messages are slipped within the pervasive humor.”
The Denver Post

“The full and simple pleasures of Frankel’s luscious prose lull the reader into rooting for…these plucky heroines.”
The New York Times