no longer numb

Dinah Newman is the best loved housewife in America. She has starred with her husband Del on Meet the Newmans for decades, first on the radio, and then on television. Del wrote, directed, and produced their show from the beginning, and as they had sons, they were added to the show. The Newmans have been a staple in American popular culture since the 1950s.

The Newmans are the perfect family, a hardworking husband and a housewife who cooks and cleans in her pearl necklace. Guy is going to law school and dating a lovely young woman, and younger Shep is becoming a pop musician and teen idol. Everyone wants to live in a family like the Newmans. There is just one problem. It’s all a lie.

Dinah and Del have been living in separate parts of the house. Del has spent much of the family’s nest egg, including dipping into the boys’ trust funds. Dinah cannot cook or clean, and her hands have been going numb. She is worried that her doctor will tell her there is something deeply wrong. Guy has dropped out of law school and is living with another actor, Kelly, a man known for his roles in Westerns, and they are not just roommates. And Shep, a talented musician, has been partying harder than his parents realize.

They all keep their secrets from the public as best they can, but when things take a turn, it gets harder and harder to keep up appearances. First, they lose their sponsors and their show is possibly getting cancelled. To try to save the show, they plan a big finale for the season, a live wedding for Guy and his on-screen girlfriend. But then Del gets into a car accident and ends up in a coma, and Dinah has to come up a solution to keep the show on television and the family together.

With a journalist who had come to the house once for an interview, Dinah decides she has to write the final script herself. But it won’t be about the family they’d been pretending to be. It won’t be the wedding Del had planned. It will be about Dinah, and about all the other women, standing up and finding their voices at long last. But will their message be received by all the women who had adored her for so long?

Meet the Newmans is a dive into popular culture and women’s rights, and at a time in history when women are once again fighting for a voice. It’s part Hollywood history and part family drama, the story of America as black-and-white television turned to color.

I think Meet the Newmans is incredibly clever. I loved all the historical elements of entertainment because I am a big nerd for television history. I never watched The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, but I’ve watched a lot of other television shows from that era, so I understood what they’d been trying to do. This story made it all personal, showing it through the eyes of the actors and characters of that time. I admired Dinah for working so hard to keep her family together in a difficult situation, and I loved to see how she grew when she was given the chance. Meet the Newmans is thoughtful and smart and inspiring.

Egalleys for Meet the Newmans were provided by Flatiron Books through Edelweiss, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.