A heartfelt, funny and uplifting debut about two failing marriages, two strangers falling in love, two friends embarking on a catering business – and the four funerals that connect them all.
This is a story about Clare, Louisa and Chris. And sometimes Paul, and, less often, Beth. It’s most certainly not about frittatas (a terrible concession), and more to do with lemon tart (a perfect contrast of textures).
It’s about what to do when your husband tells you that he doesn’t love you anymore. And what to do when your wife leaves you after too many rounds of IVF. It’s about helping your new friend with her funeral catering business, and discovering that, sometimes, the most unlikely of pairings are the very, very best. It’s about food that’s outrageously good and comforting to sad people. And, for once, not being sensible, and throwing away everything you know.
Catering, like life, doesn’t always go according to plan, and as Clare, Louisa and Chris’ stories become more intertwined, they will learn that life will always manage to break in to remind you of just how good it can be.
This is a book about living. After all, the thing about death is that it makes life important.
2023 is gearing up to be the best year for books in a while. I’ve made some bold statements about a few recent books being the year’s best, and then my very next read knocks that previous one from its perch. That’s how I feel about The Wakes by Dianne Yarwood. It’s wise, tender and so very thought-provoking. The final sentence of chapter one shook me so profoundly that I had to put the book down and consider the beauty and enormity of that sentence. And of life. And then, I picked the book back up and read the rest of it in a day.
The Wakes covers a lot of ground in just under 300 pages, asking big questions and exploring themes around life, death, relationships and letting go of the past. Structured around four funerals, it’s told through multiple perspectives; the characters are cleverly weaved together as the novel progresses.
It’s a surprisingly uplifting read for one that contains so much heartache: not only deaths, but also failed marriages and conception heartache. Foodies will appreciate the food throughout with Louisa and Clare’s funeral catering business. For me though, it was Yarwood’s finely tuned sentences and the way she writes the most perfect chapter endings.
The Wakes has already been optioned as a TV series by the production company that made Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers. This is Yarwood’s debut. A brush with mortality motivated her to pursue her dream of writing a novel. While it may’ve been a brush with death that inspired the book, it’s ultimately a glorious, funny, moving story about life and living.
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