Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige A Novel [Paperback]

Darcy Van Aiken is doing fine, thank you. She's an ICU nurse with an amicable divorce from her husband Mike, two great kids, a cute little house of her own, and a prescription for Ritalin. When her older son Jeremy gets engaged, Darcy has to figure out if Rose, the bride's mother, is going to be her new best friend or the mother-in-law who insists that all future holidays be celebrated in her home.

Meanwhile Claudia, Darcy's ex-husband's new girlfriend, beautifully dressed with perfect taste, can't help thinking she would make a much better mother-of-the-groom than Darcy.

It's a battle of will and wits. What Darcy learns about herself ???and about family, and friendship???makes for a delicious, hilarious, touching read.

KATHLEEN GILLES SEIDEL has two daughters and lives in Virginia. She has a Ph.D. in English literature form Johns Hopkins University.

1. Darcy Van Aiken narrates this novel. How does a first-person narrator color your impression of her husband, Mike? Of Rose? Of Claudia? Of Darcy herself? What would the novel have been like had Rose narrated it?

2. The novel explores, at some length, children's health. How do Finney's physical and developmental issues affect those around him? Zack's? Annie's?

3. Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige, like all comedies, begins with a society somehow in disarray. What is out of place or out of balance at the book's beginning for the Van Aiken family? For the Zander-Browns? For Claudia? How do these issues resolve? Does the resolution seem realistic?

4. Darcy's considerable abilities and virtues are exhibited in this novel. But in the universe of this novel, even the least likable character has some good qualities. What virtues does Claudia exhibit?

5. At the heart of many comedies is a courtship between a man and a woman, ending in marriage. At the heart of this one, is a pair of women who bond as friends as they are in the process of becoming in-laws. What are the balÓ3