Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson

I had heard good reviews of Julia Claiborne Johnson's debut novel Be Frank With Me. I was intrigued by the cover of Better Luck Next Time, the vintage photo of women at play. I am so, so happy that I put in my name in to win an ARC. This was a bright, warm, and happy light in the midst of Michigan's dismal winter and COVID-19 self isolation.

I laughed out loud, starting with the first page with the narrator's epigram, "Some men are born gigolos; others have it thrust upon them." 

In 1988, Dr. Howard Stovall Bennett III (Ward) tells his story to an unnamed interviewer, recalling six weeks in 1938 that changed his life. 

He took any job he could find during the Depression after his family lost their wealth and home. A Cary Grant look-a-like, he leaves his manual labor work to become a fake cowboy on a Reno dude ranch that offers wannabe divorcees a six-week residency to qualify for a quick divorce.

Ward was hired to perform ranch chores, provide eye-candy, and to "squire rich, brokenhearted ladies around Reno," which he proclaims was good experience for his future career as a doctor.

But that career was far in the future in 1938 when Nina and Emily arrive at The Flying Leap ranch. Nina is a 'repeat customer' with all the vibe and audacity of a Flapper, and she determines to help Emily loosen up and live a little.

OK, actually live it up a LOT. Like teenage schoolgirls, they go on larks and involve Ward as their chauffeur and partner in crime. Over-the-top scenes involve skinny dipping and Bottom's head and fairy wings from the theater department.

I loved all the women at the ranch, and the other cowboy Sam, and the ranch owners, and even the husbands and insolent daughter; it's an ensemble that lends itself to insight and humor.

The writing is so clever, the setting so unique and bizarre, the characters flawed and zany but human and lovable. 

Warm and generous, with a heartwarming twisted ending, this was a real delight. 

I received an ARC from the publisher through LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.

Better Luck Next Time

By Julia Claiborne Johnson

ISBN: 9780062916365

ISBN 10: 006291636X

Custom House

On Sale: January 5, 2021

hardcover $28.99

from the pubisher

It’s 1938 and women seeking a quick, no-questions split from their husbands head to the “divorce capital of the world,” Reno, Nevada. There’s one catch: they have to wait six-weeks to become “residents.” Many of these wealthy, soon-to-be divorcees flock to the Flying Leap, a dude ranch that caters to their every need. 

Twenty-four-year-old Ward spent one year at Yale before his family lost everything in the Great Depression; now he’s earning an honest living as a ranch hand at the Flying Leap. Admired for his dashing good looks—“Cary Grant in cowboy boots”—Ward thinks he’s got the Flying Leap’s clients all figured out. But two new guests are about to upend everything he thinks he knows: Nina, a St Louis heiress and amateur pilot back for her third divorce, and Emily, whose bravest moment in life was leaving her cheating husband back in San Francisco and driving herself to Reno.

A novel about divorce, marriage, and everything that comes in between (money, class, ambition, and opportunity), Better Luck Next Time is a hilarious yet poignant examination of the ways friendship can save us, love can destroy us, and the family we create can be stronger than the family we come from.