The
Grace Kelly Dress : A Novel
Brenda
Janowitz
On Sale
Date: March 3, 2020
9781525804595,
1525804596
Trade
Paperback
$16.99
USD, $22.99 CAD
Fiction
/ Contemporary Women
336
pages
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Two years after Grace Kelly’s royal wedding,
her iconic dress is still all the rage in Paris—and one replica, and the
secrets it carries, will inspire three generations of women to forge their own
paths in life and in love.
Paris, 1958: Rose, a seamstress at a
fashionable atelier, has been entrusted with sewing a Grace Kelly—look-alike
gown for a wealthy bride-to-be. But when, against better judgment, she finds
herself falling in love with the bride’s handsome brother, Rose must make an
impossible choice, one that could put all she’s worked for at risk: love,
security and of course, the dress.
Sixty years later, tech CEO Rachel, who goes
by the childhood nickname “Rocky,” has inherited the dress for her upcoming
wedding in New York City. But there’s just one problem: Rocky doesn’t want to
wear it. A family heirloom dating back to the 1950s, the dress just isn’t her.
Rocky knows this admission will break her mother Joan’s heart. But what she
doesn’t know is why Joan insists on the dress—or the heartbreaking secret that
changed her mother’s life decades before, as she herself prepared to wear it.
As the lives of these three women come
together in surprising ways, the revelation of the dress’s history collides
with long-buried family heartaches. And in the lead-up to Rocky’s wedding,
they’ll have to confront the past before they can embrace the beautiful
possibilities of the future.
BUY
LINKS:
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EXCERPT
The mother of the bride, as a bride herself
Long Island, 1982
Long Island, 1982
She loved the dress. She loved the
veil that went with it, too, though she wasn’t sure if it could be salvaged. It
was showing signs of age, its edges curling and tinged with brown. But that wouldn’t
dull her excitement.
Today was the day she would be
trying on her mother’s wedding dress. Even though Joanie had tried it on
countless times as a child—it was a favorite rainy-day activity with her
mother—today felt different. She was engaged, just like she’d dreamed about
ever since she could remember. When she tried the dress on this time, it was
for keeps. She was completely in love with the dress.
“Let me help you get it on,”
Joanie’s mother said, her French accent coming through. It was always more
pronounced when she was feeling emotional. With her American friends, Joanie
noticed, her mother always tried to sound “American,” softening her accent and
using American expressions. But when they were alone, she could be herself. Let
her guard down. Joanie knew exactly who her mother was, and she loved her for
it.
Her mother handed Joanie a pair
of white cotton gloves and then put on her own set. The first step in trying
the dress on, always, so that the oils in their hands wouldn’t defile the fabric.
She laid the large box on her bed and nodded her head at her husband, her
signal to give them privacy. The door closed to Joanie’s childhood bedroom, and
she and her mother were alone.
The white cotton gloves were cool
and smooth on her skin. Joanie opened the box slowly. So slowly. It was sealed
with a special plastic that was supposed to keep it airtight so that the dress
would not oxidize and turn yellow. She and her mother laughed as they struggled
to set the dress free. The last time she tried the dress on was the summer
before her sister died. It was after Michele’s death that her mother brought
the dress into the city so that it might be cleaned properly and preserved for
just this day. At the time, Joanie hadn’t understood the connection between her
sister’s sudden death and her mother’s tight grip on family heirlooms, but now,
a year into her psychology degree at NYC University, she understood. It was so
hard to hold on to things that were important to you, things that mattered, and
preserving her wedding dress, this memory, was her mother’s way of taking
control of something. It was something she could save.
The dress was just as beautiful
as she’d remembered. Crafted from rose point lace, the same lace used on Grace
Kelly’s iconic wedding dress, it was delicate and classic and chic and a
million other things Joanie couldn’t even articulate.
“Go on,” her mother said, holding
the first part of the dress—the bodice with the attached underbodice, skirt
support, and slip—out for her to take. As a child, it had thrilled Joanie to no
end that the wedding dress her mother wore was actually made up of four
separate pieces. It was like a secret that a bride could have on her special
day, something that no one else knew.
“I couldn’t,” Joanie said, hands
at her side. Knowing how carefully preserved the dress had been, what the dress
had meant to her mother, it was hard for Joanie to touch it. She didn’t want to
get it dirty, sully its memory. “It’s just so beautiful.”
“It’s yours now,” her mother
said, smiling warmly. “The dress belongs to you. Put it on.”
Joanie kicked off her ballerina
flats, and her mother helped her ease the bodice on. Joanie stood at attention
as her mother snapped the skirt into place, and wrapped the cummerbund around
her waist. Joanie held her hands high above her head, not wanting to get in the
way of her mother’s expert hands, hands that knew exactly where to go, fingers
that knew exactly what to do.
“You ready in there, Birdie?” her
father yelled from the hallway, impatient, his French accent just as strong as
the day he left France. Joanie always loved how her father had a special
nickname for her mother. When they first married, he would call her mother
GracieBird, a nickname of Grace Kelly’s, because of the Grace Kelly–inspired
wedding gown she wore on their wedding day. Eventually, it was shortened to
Bird, and then over time, it became Birdie. What would Joanie’s fiancé call
her?
Joanie inspected her reflection
in the mirror. Her shoulder-length blond hair, recently permed, looked messy.
Her pink eye shadow, which had always seemed so grown-up on her sister, made
her appear tired and puffy-eyed. But the dress? The dress was perfect.
Her mother opened the door
slowly, and her father’s face came into view. His expression softened as he saw
his daughter in the wedding dress. She walked out into the hallway, towards
him, and she could see a tear forming in the corner of his eye.
She turned to her mother, about
to tell her that Daddy was crying, when she saw that her mother, too, had teared
up. Joanie couldn’t help it—seeing her mother and father cry, she began to cry
as well. She could never keep a dry eye when someone else was crying, least of
all her parents, ex-pats from Europe who hardly ever cried.
Michele’s presence floated in the
air like a haze, but no one would say it. No one dared mention that she would
have worn the dress first. Should have worn the dress first.
“And look at us,” her mother
said, her hands reaching out and grabbing for her husband and daughter. “All of
us crying like little babies.”
All three embraced—carefully, of
course, so as not to ruin the dress.
Her father kissed the top of her
head. “Give us a twirl.”
Joanie obliged. The dress moved
gracefully as she spun. Joanie curtsied, and her father gently took her hand
and kissed it.
“I know what you’re thinking,”
her mother said, her voice a song.
“What?” Joanie asked
absentmindedly, while staring at her reflection in the mirror. She knew the
first thing she’d change—the sleeves. The dress needed big, voluminous sleeves,
just like Princess Diana had worn on her wedding day.
“Or I should say who you’re
thinking about,” her mother said, a gentle tease.
“Who?” Joanie asked, under her
breath, twirling from side to side in front of the mirror, watching the dress
move.
“Your fiancé,” her mother said,
furrowing her brow. “Remember him?”
“For sure,” Joanie said, spinning
around to face her mother. “My fiancé. Yes. I knew that. And, yes. I was.” But
the truth was, she had completely forgotten.
Excerpted from The Grace Kelly Dress by Brenda
Janowitz. Copyright © 2020
by Brenda Janowitz. Published by Graydon House Books.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Brenda Janowitz is the author of five novels,
including The Dinner Party and Recipe for a Happy Life. She is the
Books Correspondent for PopSugar. Brenda's work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington
Post, Salon, Redbook, and the New
York Post. She lives in New York.
SOCIAL
LINKS:
Author website: http://www.brendajanowitz.com/
Facebook: @BrendaJanowitz
Twitter: @BrendaJanowitz
Instagram: @brendajanowitzwriter
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