In the US, the debate about medical termination of pregnancy rages amidst fears of the government rolling back on women’s rights. The control of women’s choice has become such a politically fraught issue that elections hinge on the candidate being pro or anti-abortion.
Increasingly, in many developed countries, there is also the matter of elder care—older people used to be looked after in joint families, when now, in the urban nuclear set-up, senior citizens are either neglected or seen as a strain on resources. Since, for a variety of reasons, women tend to outlive men, they are the ones bearing the brunt of being in a society in which respect for elders is fast diminishing.
The problems of ageing as well as every society’s—whether progressive or conservative—control of female bodily autonomy converge in Laurie Frankel’s satire, Enormous Wings.
Pepper Mill, a 77-year-old woman who lives alone after her divorce and relishes her independence, is involved in a minor car accident. The stranger whose car she bumped into tears up her driving licence, saying she is too old to drive. Her well-meaning children (daughters Darcy and Alice, and son Max) swoop in and decide that she is not capable of living by herself and, over her protests, shift her to the Vista View retirement home. And suddenly, from living the way she wants to, after completing all her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and popular teacher, she is pushed into a situation where she is under the supervision of staff, friendly and caring though they may be.
Like Richard Osman’s delightful The Thursday Murder Club series, also set in a luxurious retirement home, this one is not a lonely, depressing place. The residents have their own apartments, though, of course, they have had to leave behind a lot of their belongings with memories attached.
The food is terrible, which is what unites the residents, among whom she befriends Maisie, Dot, and the very charming Timothy, who goes by ‘Moth’. Much to Pepper’s mild irritation, her ex-husband Roger is also living there, but they are cordial enough when they meet. She is visited often by her teenage granddaughter, Lola, who is vaguely dissatisfied with her home life and finds a confidante she can trust in her grandmother.
Pepper hits it off with Moth immediately—he is kind and solicitous towards all the others in the place and, since women far outnumber the men, is in demand as a dance partner when the residents attend a ‘prom’. A romance develops between Pepper and Moth, and though most people find the idea of elderly people having sex shocking, there is an admirable lack of prudishness in this late-life romance. Among the many things they have in common is Pepper’s past history with cancer and Moth’s wife dying of the disease.
Her peaceful and happy existence is derailed when she begins experiencing sudden symptoms: like nausea, exhaustion, and mental confusion. Fearing the worst—cancer, dementia, or a stroke—her children take her for tests. The diagnosis turns out to be a biological impossibility; much to her astonishment and the disbelief of her friends, family, and doctor, Pepper is told that she is pregnant.
The doctor is sure that the freak situation will solve itself—how can an aged body sustain a pregnancy? Now come the set of complexities that play havoc with Pepper’s and Moth’s lives. When the foetus does not automatically eject, Pepper and her family demand an abortion. But in Texas, where she lives, it is against the law. The current uproar in the US regarding the overturning of the historic and pro-choice Roe vs Wade judgement notwithstanding, several states have banned abortion, except when there is a danger to the life of the mother. Amazingly, Pepper remains perfectly healthy, so there is no cause to apply that exception. Besides, the medical community at the hospital is agog, and Pepper has unwittingly become a case study.
It turns out that years ago, she had participated in an experimental cancer drug trial, which had altered her oestrogen and DNA, which resulted in a pregnancy when she became sexually active. Typically, the unscrupulous pharma company conducting the trial did not think to warn the patients of the risk. In any case, the trial had failed, and many participants had died. Not expecting a cancer survivor to live that long, let alone get pregnant, nobody had bothered with a follow-up.
Her no-nonsense lawyer daughter, Alice, decides to take Pepper to another state to have an abortion, but before they can act on it, the news of this ‘miracle’ pregnancy leaks, and Pepper’s life becomes part of a media circus and heated pro and anti-abortion debates across the world. Both sides want her as their poster girl, and the pharma company that had run the trials wants to map her genomes. She can barely step out of home, and people keep trying to sneak to the facility under false pretexts to persuade her to back their cause.
As Pepper says in exasperation, her being miraculous and blessed is “a wonder of the world. And, therefore, the property of the world. No longer entitled to either my own body or my own mind. No longer entitled to my life, I was swallowed up instead. By those who wanted the pupacorn’s (baby’s) life over mine. By the ones who wanted me to be a face, a metaphor, a cause, a warning. By the ones who wanted my blood's secrets. By the ones who wanted my story, but not really my story: their story of my story.”
Frankel has turned what could have been a tragedy into a sharp satire on, as a review noted, “the modern cultural appetite for consuming private trauma as public entertainment. Pepper ceases to be a human being, a grandmother, or a mother; she becomes a symbol, a meme, and a battleground. Through the endless parade of talk-show bookings, legal filings, and intrusive "belly-rubbers," Frankel captures the exhausting nature of modern hyper-visibility. The humor is fast-paced and witty, providing a vital counterweight to the darker, more claustrophobic themes of the novel.”
Throughout it all, Pepper remains remarkably unfazed. What she resents is the power to choose being snatched away from her. And that is what women down the ages have been demanding—choice. When they are young, restrictions are placed on women for their ‘protection’; when they grow old, their autonomy is taken for their safety and well-being. The very vital question asked is: ‘at what age does a woman stop being commodified and belong to herself?’
Deepa Gahlot is a Mumbai-based columnist, critic and author.
