Gretchen Anthony’s new novel, “Tired Ladies Take a Stand,” is a warm affirmation of female friendship. The story is not entirely satisfying, but it’s laced with wisdom and humor and will almost certainly be snapped up by book clubs everywhere.

The plot follows four women in their late 40s or early 50s who have been friends for ages and who all arenow overextended in life.

Set in the Bay Area of California (sorry, Minnesotans — Anthony lives in Minneapolis but she set this one on the coast) the book is about betrayal, secrets and neuroses, but mostly it is about the importance of enduring friendship. These four women have been besties since their 20s, when their mantra was “say yes to everything.”

They had some wild and hilarious times back then, but now they are tired, have too much to do and are trying to figure out when it is OK to say no. The characters and the storyline are deliberately exaggerated, which helps emphasize the message. The women frequently leap to support each other with all-nighters, fueled by wine and chips and followed by ugly crying. There’s little subtlety or grit in this book, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

All four women have intense, larger-than-life personalities and their men (those who have men) are minor characters, mostly forgettable.

Andi is a human rights lawyer who jets around the world helping abused and exploited people, while her teenage son at home starts failing his classes.

Emma, a teacher, is recently divorced and is trying to plan her daughter’s wedding in the face of a multitude of obstacles — including her ex-husband’s pregnant girlfriend and an ex-fiance who is both stalking her and running for Congress.

Carolina is a big-shot executive and compulsive runner who is working 100-hour weeks, trying to keep her department going in the wake of layoffs.

And Fern might be closest to readers’ hearts — she’s a writer, and the memoir she published years ago, about the four friends in their 20s, has been rediscovered and is being optioned for a movie. The other three women are deeply opposed to having their bawdy former lives splashed across the silver screen; after Fern signs the contract, she has to figure out how to let them know that the project is going forward.

You can be forgiven if you get a little confused at the beginning — the book opens with an excerpt from Fern’s memoir of their twentysomething selves, but with no context to explain it. Memoir excerpts punctuate the narrative throughout the book, which is told from the point of view of all four women.

Two tsunami-like plotlines threaten to swamp everything. A few pages from the end, they’re still not resolved and you might start wondering how Anthony is going to tie up those loose ends. The answer might not satisfy you.

But maybe that doesn’t matter. “Tired Ladies Take a Stand” reminds us that as we move through life, despite marriages, children and careers, some of our most important relationships are with our friends.

Laurie Hertzel is a book critic in Minnesota. She’s at lauriehertzel@gmail.com.

Tired Ladies Take a Stand

By: Gretchen Anthony.

Publisher: Park Row Books, 336 pages, $18.99.

Event: Conversation with Kathleen West, 7 p.m. May 14, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Av., Mpls. Free; registration required.

MINNEAPOLIS (KARE 11) — A man who prosecutors say fled the country after killing someone outside a busy gas station in 2013 is back in Minneapolis and charged with murder.

Prosecutors say 30-year-old Suleiman Abdulkadir Ali is being held in the Hennepin County jail on charges of second-degree murder, which took place the night before Halloween. He is in custody due to a tip police received in 2022, and what investigators say is a subsequent DNA match.

Minneapolis police squads were dispatched to Bobby and Steve’s Auto World at the intersection of Washington Avenue South and 12th Avenue South just before midnight. When officers arrived they found 26-year-old Abdirahman Haji-Ahmed sitting in the driver’s seat of a running vehicle, shot multiple times in the head. Haji-Ahmed was pronounced dead on the scene.

A security guard on duty told police she had seen a man wearing a multi-colored letterman-style jacket jumping a fence and running away following the shooting.

Investigators recovered five .45 shells from inside the vehicle, and determined that all the shots had been fired from the back seat of the vehicle. They also found a torn piece of cloth next to a fence that was believed to be from the shooter’s jacket.

Prosecutors say a phone number recovered from the victim’s phone led them to a woman who told police she had driven to Bobby and Steve’s with her boyfriend and another man she didn’t know to buy weed from Haji-Ahmed. She refused to say what happened or identify the two men.

Surveillance video captured a man in a letterman-style jacket, later identified as Suleiman Abdulkadir Ali, getting out of the woman’s vehicle about ten minutes before the fatal shooting. As police collected against him, they learned the suspect had fled the country, likely to Somalia, and the case went cold.

In 2022, court documents say, a tipster contacted police and told them Abdulkadir Ali had contacted her on the day of the murder and said he needed money to flee the country. The woman said he admitted to killing Haji-Ahmed and needed to flee because he had been caught on video at the gas station.

Homicide detectives learned in March of 2024 that Abdulkadir Ali was back in the U.S. and living in Fargo. They obtained a warrant to obtain his DNA and collected a sample to compare with the piece of jacket found at the murder scene. Tests reportedly show the defendant is among just .6% of the world’s population who could be a potential match.

Court documents indicate police caught up with Ali in Grand Forks.

Suleiman Abdulkadir Ali will appear in Hennepin County District Court on charges of second-degree murder on May 16.

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