posted 12-08-2010 06:13 AM               

Think of it as "Mad Men" meets "The Right Stuff" or "The Real Housewives of Cape Canaveral."

"The Astronaut Wives Club," Lily Koppel's second book (after "The Red Leather Diary"), has all of the above plus a dash of publishing excitement. After an extended auction, the book sold recently to Grand Central Publishing for a high-six-figure sum. "An imprint at every house in town" was interested in the book, said a source familiar with the deal.

Tentatively slated for release in spring 2013, "The Astronaut Wives Club" will follow the spouses of men in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, who lived in a Houston neighborhood they called "Togethersville."

The wives "drank together, popped pills together, consoled each other," Koppel, who's written for The Times, told Gatecrasher. While their husbands traveled in space - and cavorted with groupies known as "Cape Cookies" in Cape Canaveral, a no-wives zone - the women were left to maintain what Koppel calls the "facade of the perfect American family" for the fleet of cameras that invaded their homes.

The wives were proto-reality-stars. Life magazine purchased the exclusive rights to their stories for $500,000, divided among all the families. The deal also granted the astronauts life insurance policies, which no one else would provide. In return, the families lived with reporters camped on their lawns and crawling in through their windows -- essentially embedded in suburbia.

Meanwhile, the husbands returning to Earth had Don Draper-worthy existential angst. Some, like Buzz Aldrin, fell into depression and alcoholism. Most of the marriages split after the space effort. But while the astronauts lost track of one another, the wives stayed in touch. Even now, Koppel found, they gather for cruises and reunions.

Koppel's agent, Larry Weissman of Larry Weissman Literary, tells us there's already interest in the film rights to the book. He added, though, that he sees the story more as "a really smart TV series."

posted 12-08-2010 05:18 PM               

I have to be honest I felt it was going to be the worst of all 12 episodes as it didn't really concentrate on the mission aspect with those wonderful special effects so prevalent in most of the other episodes,but I was pleasantly surprised and it gave me a much clearer idea into what went on in the minds of the wives.

I learned some things I hadn't known before, such as Susan Borman's drinking problem, Pat White's suicide in the 80's, how many of the astronauts were away from home so much of the time (some scenes include Marilyn Lovell revealing to Jim that she is four months pregnant, and in 1972 telling him that all of their kids had their tonsils removed in 1965!)

The wives obviously rallied around the likes of Marilyn See, Pat White, Martha Chaffee after their husband's deaths, but it is clear that once their husband's were dead they no longer felt important, and gradually drifted apart from the other wives they had been friendly with for so long.

posted 12-10-2010 03:20 PM               

I remember watching "The Astronaut Wives Club" episode of "From the Earth to the Moon" and first thinking "Why aren't they covering Apollo 16 like they have the previous missions?". As I watched further, I realized that this was one of the better episodes of the series, for it involved a topic that has not been talked about as much as the science and the flying: the "war" at home, the struggles of the wives to raise children and run households with very little help from their spouses due to their training schedules, the struggles with the press, and the anguish of loss of a husband in the course of their duties.

After reading the posts on here, I got the chance to watch "Apollo Wives", which was a BBC doccumentary from a few years ago about the wives of many of the Apollo astronauts. It is a great doccumentatry, and I feel that it really brought home the emotions and events that took place behind the scenes during the race to the moon. It was interesting to hear their side of the story, how they coped with the issues that faced them. One of the more emotional moments was when Martha Chaffee talked about "the Fire", the loss of her husband, and how she talked to their children about what happened. I must admit that I found it interesting that while they showed excerpts from Beth Williams' interviews, they did not talk to her about the loss of her husband or much else about how events affected her.

posted 11-09-2012 12:37 PM               

In a thoroughly researched page-turner that transports readers back to the beginnings of our space race, bestselling author Lily Koppel reveals for the first time the stories and secrets of America's unsung heroes-the wives of our original astronauts.

As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons, donning sherbet-swirled Pucci dresses and lacquering their hair into extravagant rocket styles.

Annie Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage and many magazine features, was the envy of the other wives; platinum-blonde bombshell Rene Carpenter was proclaimed JFK's favorite; Betty Grissom worried her husband was having affairs; Louise Shepard just wanted to be left alone; and licensed pilot Trudy Cooper arrived on base with a dirty secret. With each spectacular launch, they worried they might never see their husbands again. Together they formed the Astronaut Wives Club.

A fascinating, dishy and moving read, set against the backdrop of the Space Age and a country that would be forever changed by it, The Astronaut Wives Club tells the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history.

Lily Koppel is the bestselling author of The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal (Harper, 2008). She has written for the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, the Huffington Post, and Glamour.

• Hardcover: 384 pages
  
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (June 11, 2013)
  
• ISBN-10: 1455503258
  
• ISBN-13: 978-1455503254

posted 02-21-2013 06:44 AM               

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Originally posted by garymilgrom:
What is a "dishy read"?

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posted 02-21-2013 11:59 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by AstroAutos:
The wives obviously rallied around the likes of Marilyn See, Pat White, Martha Chaffee after their husband's deaths, but it is clear that once their husband's were dead they no longer felt important, and gradually drifted apart from the other wives they had been friendly with for so long.

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posted 02-21-2013 12:14 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by garymilgrom:
Hart how are you reading this if the release is still months away?

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posted 02-21-2013 02:56 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Hart Sastrowardoyo:
I believe it is actually the Aldrins and then then...

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posted 02-22-2013 08:54 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Hart Sastrowardoyo:
To be fair, the copy is marked as an uncorrected proof.

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In all that time and for all those books, I never saw an error that was in the page proofs fixed in the final book.

Just saying.

posted 02-23-2013 09:06 PM               

After the news of Elliot's death had been so bungled by NASA and the press, Togethersville banded together more than ever, especially protecting its widows and wives from the outside world - which in the case of Ted Freeman's death had been devastating.

Of more import is this from a later chapter:

A few days she (Joan Aldrin) wrote, "Had a long talk with Buzz, but still don't understand what he was driving at. Who makes the first exit from the lunar module on lunar surface is still very much an issue. And B was upset because he heard, via that terrible institution, the grapevine, that Deke's opinion was that Neil should be the first for historic reasons if nothing else."

Apollo 11's commander, Neil Armstrong, was a civilian, and both NASA and President Nixon felt it was important for Apollo 11 not to be seen as a form of military action, of lunar conquest, especially with the Vietnam War still raging.

1. The way the LEM was designed, wouldn't Neil have been the first to leave, because he was closest to the hatch?

2. If Apollo 11 failed to land, and it was up to Apollo 12 to do so, both Conrad and Bean were military. (And Armstrong is ex-military. Or you can argue NASA is a civilian agency and nobody has military rank.)

3. If they didn't want the lunar landing to be seen as a form of conquest, then why plant the US flag and not the UN flag?