Jill Campbell returned to Boston after leaving her job, her
apartment and her husband in New York City. She's hoping to
make a fresh start, since all of the dirty laundry
surrounding her husband's affair with a younger woman at
their agency was aired in the advertising industry gossip
columns before she left. Jill buys a large old house on a
few acres of land in a rural bedroom community outside of
the city. Having a house and a car are new experiences,
part of her new life on her own. When a new neighbor, the
ruggedly handsome "Grain Man," delivers two goats and a dog
that her ailing grandfather purchased to help her build
character, Jill knows she needs help. She doesn't expect to
find it in a shy teenage girl named Sarah who comes every
day to care for the animals in her barn. Jill is rarely at
home. She loves her work, and she immerses herself in the
second-best advertising firm in New England.
Although she was hired to work on the campaign for a sexy
Swedish convertible car, she is slow to realize that her
new position seems to encompass many other tasks. When she
is assigned to the account for the largest producer of pre-
packaged beef in the world, she recognizes that it would be
a very bad time to admit that she only eats chicken and
fish. Jill usually relies on her restaurateur father for
advice, but he has no compliments for the conglomerate beef
industry. As the token female creative director at her
agency, she is playing with the big boys more often than
she would like. Thankfully the beef executives seem to like
her, even though she doesn't have much first-hand
experience with their products. To keep her job, she'll
have to come up with a winning slogan that will convince
Americans to eat red meat again. And when reporters start
asking questions about a former employee, slogans may turn
out to be the least of her worries.
Tracy McArdle delivers a strong follow-up to her
debut novel CONFESSIONS OF A NERVOUS SHIKSA. The
storytelling alternates between the distinctive voices of
two women both living lives of "quiet desperation" and
finding their own ways to fit in -- within their families,
their jobs and their own expectations. One is the 35-year-
old divorcee returning to her home but finding her family
greatly changed and her job unfulfilling, and the other is
a 13-year-old tomboy who is much more comfortable working
outdoors with animals than with the constraints of school,
people her own age and her mother. This isn't the first
story to explore the balance of professional satisfaction
with personal happiness, but REAL WOMEN EAT BEEF delivers a
relevant and rewarding message with exceptional humor and
grace. Not many books can make use of advertising lingo,
foodie restaurant speak and animal husbandry terms with
equal eloquence, but McArdle lets her characters shine in
this absorbing chick-lit story of women in the workplace,
romances and friendships. Highly recommended.
Welcome to advertising executive Jill Campbell's life,
version 2.0. Gone are the cheating ex-husband and the chaos
of New York. Brand-new features include a prestigious job at
a Boston ad agency, a stronger father-daughter relationship,
and a gorgeous old farmhouse. It's bliss -- until a snazzy
car account evaporates, leaving her branding...beef.
Un-snazzy, un-sexy beef -- which she hasn't eaten in twenty
years. Talk about false advertising. Owning a
two-hundred-year-old house in a one-store hamlet is not the
nirvana Jill imagined, even with the addition of a dog, two
needy goats, and unexpected encounters with the town's most
eligible -- and probably only -- bachelor.
Peace of mind sold separately.
Wondering how she sold herself on this new existence, Jill
forms an unlikely bond with Sarah Watson, a feisty
twelve-year-old with an aversion to training bras, makeup,
and all the trappings that supposedly make sixth grade
worthwhile. While Sarah teaches Jill the basics of home
maintenance and animal husbandry, Jill helps Sarah deal with
impending womanhood. And as men start to complicate matters,
every idea Jill ever had about love and advertising gets
turned on its head. Suddenly, her life looks nothing like
the picture on the box, but it could turn out to be exactly
what she didn't know she needed.
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