STARRED REVIEW
July 2015

The tradition that keeps a fierce frienship together

By Mardi Jo Link
In 1993, Mardi Jo Link was a 31-year-old wife and mother of two and a bar waitress with a college degree. Just before sunrise on an October Michigan morning, Link and three friends set off on what would become an annual get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge adventure to the isolated refuge of Drummond Island on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In 1993, Link was the newest member of the sorority, but she eventually became the chronicler of the highs and lows of the annual island weekend.
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In 1993, Mardi Jo Link was a 31-year-old wife and mother of two and a bar waitress with a college degree. Just before sunrise on an October Michigan morning, Link and three friends set off on what would become an annual get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge adventure to the isolated refuge of Drummond Island on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In 1993, Link was the newest member of the sorority, but she eventually became the chronicler of the highs and lows of the annual island weekend.

In The Drummond Girls, Link proceeds roughly year-by-year as the conclave grows from four to eight, and as each of the friends passes through the peaks and valleys of life, from marriage and divorce to birth and death, including the sudden death of one of their own, Mary Lynn.

Link regales readers with tales of nights and days spent exploring the North woods, running into some of the island’s more colorful inhabitants—both animal and human—and bonding deeply with a group of women who, as Link says, would “do ninety days at a minimum-security prison camp or plan a hostile takeover of a Caribbean beach resort” for each other.

So pick up this book: You’ll laugh; you’ll cry; you’ll find yourself pondering the meaning of life’s small disappointments and its greatest joys, especially the “fierce friendships” at the heart of this remarkable story. 

 

This article was originally published in the July 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

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Inspiring, entertaining and strikingly relevant, Connie will appeal to those interested in the changing roles of women in society and the evolution of American media.

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The Drummond Girls

The Drummond Girls

By Mardi Jo Link
Grand Central
ISBN 9781455554744

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