Alice MurrayAlice is very vain and always worried about her looks, her clothes butEspecially her figure. All her life she had been attractive until it becamesome amount of work. After fifty she got tired of exercising, dieting,coloring her grey hair, and taking 20 minutes each day to do her makeup.Now that she is sixty-two, she compared herself from going from a bright,powerful tiger, to a grey, wrinkly sheep. Alice had married Mack andtogether they had a son, Alan. All her life she worked in Boston atTransWorld which now merged with another company to becomeTransContinent. She was perfect at her job because she was intelligent,ambitious, and controlling in a good way. After the merge, Alice’s jobposition changed somewhat making her regular work extremely different.Alice did not adapt well to the change and was later given earlyretirement. For Alice to stay at her house everyday, not in her office where sheConsidered herself at home was almost impossible. She couldn’t acceptthe fact that someone else was in her office, in her chair and on hercomputer. She was depressed for quite some time, before gettinginvolved with the HFC. Alice eventually got over her jealousy for thewoman who took over job and moved on with her life. She is now dating Gideon

Banks since her divorce with Mack.

Shirley GoldShirley Gold is a 60 year masseuse who enjoys helping people heal and even

though she is exhausted from her work, she can’t afford to quit. Shirley was

married to her husband Jimmy, who recently died and she is now dating Justin

Quale. Shirley has long vibrant red hair that curls past her shoulders, large blue

eyes, and is always wearing a lot of jewellery. She is a vegetarian leaving her

naturally slender, and she has stayed away from cigarettes and boozes for over

20 years, keeping herself healthy.

Even though Shirley sounds like her life is perfectly under control, there are

nights when she longs for her husband Jimmy, and wishes she could hit up the

bars, to try to forget about her depressed feelings. Now that she has become

part of “The Hot Flash Club” most of her days are spent with her friends

Marilyn, Faye and Alice, since she has no children of her own. Her main goal

throughout the novel is to get a retreat underway. She has fanaticised over

having a “Golden Moments” retreat where her clients can come, relax and

leave feeling refreshed. She is taking business classes in the evenings trying to

up her knowledge about business and of course her friends are there

supporting her and her dream to have her retreat.

Jennifer D’Annucio• Jennifer has long black silky locks that she pins back with

barrettes. Her skin that was being massages was as smooth as cream with firm flesh beneath it. Jennifer is a client of Shirley, only because Shirley is wondering if Jennifer is dating Lars. Jennifer absolutely loves baking and enjoys making her home welcoming. She is very caring, honest, and grateful for everything in her life and gives off good energy. Once she realized she was becoming a home wrecker, she was upset, and decided to become responsible for her actions. She then became involved with Alan, Alice’s son and allowed Lars to be a good father and a perfect husband. Jennifer was always laid back until things between her and Lars had to end things. Then she became stresses, regretful and embarrassed. Once things smoothed over and she started seeing Alan, she returned to her normal loving self.

Character Event Reaction

Faye While working at the Eastbrooks, Faye discovered Dora, Lila’s younger sister who has spina bifida. The family kept Dora locked away because they thought she was a let down to the family.

Faye respected the Eastbrooks secret but felt extremely bad for Dora. Dora and Faye shared the interest of art, so Faye made secret visits while the family was out and spend time with Dora. Dora and Faye became great friends.

Alice Alice had worked at TransWorld all her life and loved every minute of it. She was high up on the corporal ladder and when her boss found out she had hired Marilyn to spy on another secretary, they offered her early retirement, and basically told her to stay home.

When Alice was nicely fired from her job, she felt like her life now meant nothing. Since it was Marilyn’s fault, she had a freak out on Marilyn and stayed hidden in her house for a few days. She threw out all her work outfits and got rid of everything that had to do with her office. Alice spent many hours in the evening crying and had no idea what to do with herself during the day. She couldn’t even walk past her building without becoming so angry towards Marilyn so she always took the long way to the city.

Character Event Reaction

Marilyn Marilyn was working at her office at the University when she decided to go find her husband Theodore who also worked at the University in the Science Faculty, and ask him to go to supper since they hadn’t spent much time together lately. When she tried to open his door, it was locked so she took out the key he gave her years ago. She opened the door to find his secretary sprawled out on top of his desk, with her skirt pulled up to her waist.

At first Marilyn couldn’t believe that Theodore would do such a thing, especially at work. She called the HFC members crying and in shock. They all tried giving her advice but she had her own plan in mind. She went out shopping, got all new clothes, a new hair cut so she didn’t look like a scientist anymore. Then she called a man, who also worked in her building who was constantly hitting on her and they headed out for a date. Later that night, they ended up staying out late, drinking and going home together.

Shirley When Shirley’s husband Jimmy got fired from work he came home and took his anger out on her, then he decided he was going to move to Florida. At the time, Shirley was debating if she was going to continue her massages or not, but now she had no choice, she needed the money.

Shirley then decided she wanted to make people’s lives better. She came up with the idea of her special retreat, “Golden Moments”. She became friends with the HFC and now her dreams of her own relaxing retreat are underway thanks to help from the HFC.

Fionnula Flanagan who stared in

“Youngblood” is the perfect actress

to act for “Alice” if there were to be

a “Hot Flash Club” movie. Fionnula

is an older lady, who is very flirty

and interest in younger men. Alice is

also an older lady who is currently

dating a man 8 years younger than

her.

Fionnula Flanagan as Alice

Betty White as ShirleyBetty White would be a good

actress to play Shirley because

she stared in a series where she

lived her life with four widowed

or divorced women in their

"golden years”. White was also

a man- hungry woman. That scenario

is the same as Shirley's life although

the four don’t live together, they

are all experiencing their golden

years together. Betty also won an

emmy for outstanding comedy and

Shirley is the most comical of all four

women.

Beatrice Arthur as Faye

Beatrice, who played Dorothy

in “The Golden Girls” was a

comforting, reliable figure, to

her former husband who had died.

Faye in The Hot Flash Club was also

a reliable, and comforting figure

for her daughter Laura during her

times of need. Faye’s husband had

also died so these two characters

could easily be compared.

Estelle Getty as Marilyn

Getty, who played in “The Golden

Girls” was heavily made up in

thick glasses and was known as

a lovable, saucy actress who

played the role of a feisty mother.

Marilyn, from “The Hot Flash Club”

is a paleontologist who also wore

big glasses before her make over

and was a lovable mother to her son.

Writing Style-Adjectives/ Description

• (1) “Saturday morning Shirley drove to Jennifer D’Annucio’s home on a tree-lined street in an idyllic neighbourhood of Stoneham, all single-family homes, with picket fences and birdhouses and tree houses and trikes and bikes in the driveway.” (p.200)

• (2) “Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Marilyn was startled into speechlessness. Her new glossy, coppery hair fell about her face in a shaggy jumble ending below her ears. Bangs covered up the wrinkles on her forehead. Her eyes looked bigger, her cheekbones more pronounced.” (p.114)

• (3) “The window was draped with curtains in rich floral pinks and greens; Shirley could imagine Jennifer closing them against the bitter winter darks, blushing the room with summer. A drop leaf walnut table, much polished, stood in front of the window, a vase of spring flowers on it, and just a few steps away was the kitchen, old-fashioned, the appliances nearly antediluvian , but everything shinning clean. And on the counter sat the pies with their beautiful golden crust.” (p.202)

• (4) “At the curb, Marilyn waited for the light to change. Next to her stood a young woman with her skin rare like silk, a lacy top ending just below her breasts, her trousers hanging from her hipbones, her sleek belly with its navel ring exposed.” (p.319)

• (5) “He’s smart, clever, industrious, but I’m not sure how ambitious he is.” (p.119)

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1530217/Kelsie_TV

• Plot:• When Faye was working at the Eastbrook's house, she was there only working on

her HFC assignment. Little did she know that finding out about Dora, their daughter they kept secret could change her life and also accomplish her HFC task.

• If Faye had not worked extra hours late at night waiting for the perfect time to enter into Dora’s room, she would never have found out if Lila was truly in love with Teddy. Therefore, Teddy and Lila’s wedding would have been the big, fancy, important day, without Dora as they had planned. Instead, Lila wanted her sister at the wedding because she loved her sister, and thought she was beautiful. Since Dora never left her room, for sake of being seen, they had the wedding in Dora’s room, with only the people Teddy and Lila loved and respected the most.

• Also, Faye became great friends with Dora as they shared a passion for art. Faye’s life had been a mess ever since her husbands death and she had stopped painting because she only did it for Jack. She felt that she had lost her touch and she became depressed. When she began secretly painting again with Dora her life completely turned around for the better. She then had other important tasks on her mind that she needed to accomplish now that she was back to her normal self. She needed to help her daughter Laura with her new daughter and also with her marriage issues.

• If Faye hadn’t returned to her normal self, Laura’s relationship with Lars could have been over for good. Faye guided her daughter through her issues and took care of baby Megan when Laura needed a break. Faye also sent Laura and Lars on a romantic 3 day get away, which saved their marriage.

• Nancy Thayer published her book “The Hot Flash Club” in 2003. Her title choice is perfect for the story line because all four women involved are going through a time in their lives when they’re experiencing hot flashes. None of the women knew each other until they met at a party where they became close friends. They each have their own life problems dealing with their husbands, children, grand children and jobs. The women are assigned a task in which they try to help out another member of their “Hot Flash Club” with their life issue. Shirley, Alice, Marilyn and Faye meet every so often to discuss their progress within their club. During their meetings they also talk about their sagging body parts, their weight that just wont go away, and the aches and pains they encountering each day as they grow older. Meanwhile, all four ladies are enjoying huge pieces of chocolate cake and giggling about how they’re going to need to go shopping for control-top pantyhose while they sit by the wide open windows in the middle of the winter.

Theme:

Is Lars really cheating on Laura?

Laura who is Faye’s daughter recently got married to Lars who is a business man trying to climb the corporal ladder. Lars and Laura just had a baby girl named Megan, but they are finding out she is more work than they expected. Megan cries from the time she wakes up in the morning until the time she goes to bed and for many hours during the night. Lars and Laura are not enjoying their marriage like they envisioned and it’s causing issues in their relationship. Laura is also experiencing post partum depression adding more stress to the situation. Lars began spending late hours at the “office” when really he was visiting a woman named Jennifer D’Annucio. Jennifer is the ideal wife, with perfect food, a perfectly clean house and an awesome personality. To try to figure out if Lars is having an affair, the HFC sends Shirley, the masseuse to Jennifer’s house saying she won free massages, because someone entered her name at the mall. Automatically Jennifer assumes that her new friends ‘Lars’ entered her name. It’s Shirley’s HFC assignment to find out if Lars is really cheating on Laura.

Conflict:

• At the very first free session for Jennifer, Shirley see’s roses on her kitchen table. While Jennifer goes to the bathroom to change, Shirley looks for a card in the flowers. The card is only initialled with a ‘L’. Not completely convinced, Shirley asks who the flowers are from. Jennifer simply replied, “from a friend.” The second session is where Shirley hits the jack pot. Jennifer actually says Lars’s name when talking about her ‘friend’. She also mentions that Lars is married, has a baby girl and works at the building where her supposedly spends his late hours. It’s set in stone, Lars is seeing Jennifer. When the HFC meets the following Monday after Shirley’s discovery, Faye is not at all shocked but has not idea how to tell her daughter Laura.

• To resolve the issue, Faye decides to bring Megan along to a HFC meeting knowing that Jennifer will also be in attendance. Once Jennifer see’s baby Megan and realizes that it’s Lars’s daughters she calls herself a home wrecker and decides to cut it off with Lars. Faye then chose to send Laura and Lars on a 3 day romantic get away to reconcile their marriage, while she looks after baby Megan.