48 pages • 1-hour read
When Life Gives You Lululemons
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use and disordered eating.
Privilege and Hypocrisy in Suburban Elite Culture
Emily Charlton, Miriam Kagan, and Karolina Hartwell’s intersecting lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, expose the inauthenticity that defines elite suburban culture in the United States. The women have distinctly different backgrounds, but they find themselves similarly disillusioned by life in Greenwich. Emily once worked for Miranda Priestley in the New York fashion industry, Miriam was a “partner at the most prestigious firm in the city” (13), and Karolina used to be a Victoria’s Secret model and was “the face of L’Oréal for ten years” (44). Despite their accomplished pasts, the women immediately lose their sense of identity, purpose, and stability once they’re submerged in the entirely new reality of Greenwich, Connecticut. There, women occupy themselves by hosting and attending elaborate themed parties, day-drinking, spending their money on plastic surgery, outsourcing their childcare, going to the gym, and attending PTA meetings. Although humble on its surface, this culture threatens to destroy Emily’s, Miriam’s, and Karolina’s dignity and self-assurance over the course of the novel as they seek purpose and belonging in their new lives.
The descriptions of the Greenwich environment, community, and culture throughout the narrative underscore how wealthy small-town America can breed discontent, artificiality, and snobbery. Karolina lives in an “ultra-modern” house that looks “like it belonged in a movie featuring a sociopath” (51). On the surface, the place looks idyllic, but, in fact, it aggravates Karolina’s isolation and demonstrates that there is a darker underbelly to the ideal Greenwich setting. Similarly, although all the women in the town look perky, happy, and satisfied, Miriam soon discovers that most of their marriages are falling apart and their bodies have been reconstructed by numerous plastic surgeries. Their lives appear blissful but are, in fact, defined by falsity. Emily, Miriam, and Karolina try to play along with this new society to find acceptance, but their failed endeavors leave them asking “Why [does] it seem so much worse here?” (83).
Emily’s, Miriam’s, and Karolina’s feelings of alienation within and frustration with the Greenwich culture convey their desire for a return to a life that felt more authentic, even grittier. They all miss “the dirt and bagels and taxis and self-deprecation and edge” of New York City (333), whereas Greenwich culture seems to promote a sanitized version of life that rings false to the primary characters. They have realized that the life of perfection that they first envied and then tried to emulate is hollow, and they turn to the bond they’ve developed to find acceptance and support. Together, they must foster a new community within, yet set apart from, their suburban counterparts. They may never fit into elite suburbia, but they can find belonging with each other.
How Age Changes Ideals and Outlook
Emily’s, Miriam’s, and Karolina’s experiences of aging challenge them to reevaluate how and where they derive their self-worth and worldview. The three women have been trained by their culture to believe that their value comes from their relationships with men, how men see them, and their youthful beauty. Through their respective journeys toward self-acceptance and love, the novel highlights how a woman’s perspective of herself, her attributes and flaws, changes as she ages.
Now all in their mid-thirties, Emily, Miriam, and Karolina feel their social cache, vocational relevance, and sexual desirability fading. As Emily ages, she feels it is “getting harder with every passing year” to compete with younger women (4). She is still nominally youthful and attractive but can’t help comparing herself to women her junior. Miriam obsesses over her body, too: She berates herself for gaining weight since moving to the suburbs, and will do things like grab “her midsection, ending up with two handfuls of flesh” to prove her physical unworthiness (11). She punishes herself with exercise and berates herself when she munches on junk food, convincing herself that because she is no longer as thin as she used to be, Paul is cheating on her with a younger woman. Karolina also attributes her husband Graham Hartwell’s infidelity, deception, and betrayal to her failures as a woman: She not only dropped out of college but also has been unable to get pregnant throughout their 10 years of marriage. In these ways, all three women are suffering from patriarchal societal conventions that don’t allow them to age, inflicting insecurity and self-doubt upon them.
Over the course of the novel, Emily, Miriam, and Karolina learn to embrace their changes as opportunities for personal transformation. Earlier in the novel, Emily becomes desperate for the “feeling of being wanted. Untethered, Sexy to someone other than [her] own husband” (174). She regards Alistair’s attention as evidence of her social and personal worth but later realizes these are cultural conventions she has bought into. Once she reconciles with her age, relationship, and job situation, she discovers she is ready for a new way of life. She recommits to her marriage, gets pregnant, moves back to New York, and settles down. Meanwhile, Miriam learns to embrace the decisions she made with more conviction: “She had quit her job to stay home and be more present with her children” (215). Although she often misses her work in the city, she is thankful her family has more space and that she can take life at a slower pace. Karolina also discovers that her separation from Graham isn’t a sign of her failure but an important turning point in her middle age. By the novel’s end, she is raising Harry primarily on her own, circumstances that empower rather than alienate her. In these ways, she, Emily, and Miriam learn that aging isn’t the evil that society presents it as; instead, it presents an opportunity for new ways of life and thought.
Transformative Power of Female Friendship
The novel underscores the importance of fostering female friendships via Emily, Miriam, and Karolina’s unlikely connections with each other. At the start of the novel, Emily, Miriam, and Karolina are all isolated. Emily feels like a failure when she loses the Rizzo job and gets stuck on the East Coast without her husband. She agrees to visit Miriam in Greenwich but is averse to the suburbs and has no idea how to integrate herself into this unfamiliar society. By the end of New Year’s Day, Miriam feels that “this year [is] shaping up to be a loser” (14). An outsider in her new neighborhood and alone in her marriage, Miriam is unsure how to improve her circumstances. Meanwhile, Karolina’s arrest, custody battle, and marital separation make her feel “so completely helpless. So totally alone” (21). The women are all in vulnerable states, which unexpectedly lead them to each other.
Emily, Miriam, and Karolina’s loose associations with each other provide room for them to grow as individuals and a friend group. Emily and Miriam have known each other for years but haven’t been in close contact since Emily relocated to the West Coast. Her return to the East Coast creates an organic opportunity for them to reconnect in a new context and a new phase of life. Miriam has also known Karolina for some time, as she was “her old high school friend. They had overlapped senior year of high school in Paris at the American School” (13). Karolina’s arrest reminds Miriam of their former kinship and inspires her to get in touch with Karolina once again. Emily also knew Karolina by association, as she “met her a hundred times when [she] was at Runway” (47). These ties initially appear too loose to hold the friends together. However, because the women are all desperate for authentic connection, they find their past acquaintanceships to be the ideal foundation for a new and beautiful friendship. They don’t have so much history together that it clouds the present, but they know each other well enough to trust and invest in one another. Their support of each other proves to be invaluable in finding their way in their new community and growing in unexpected directions.
Emily, Miriam, and Karolina support one another through good times and bad, which captures how connections between women can help the individual survive. Emily and Miriam devote all their energy to Karolina’s case with Graham and Harry. They spend late nights sharing food, drinks, and conversation, and actively research and fight for Karolina in public settings. Emily and Karolina meanwhile invest in Miriam’s marital, personal, and vocational conundrums, perpetually encouraging her not to lose hope. Karolina and Miriam, meanwhile, urge Emily to rethink her life in LA and open herself to a new future with Miles. The recurring scenes of the women spending time together imagistically underscore the stabilizing, rejuvenating nature of their connection. Beyond supporting each other, they allow each other space to grow into this new phase of their life.
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