Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave [Hardcover]

Ellen Sussman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0393064638 | ISBN-13: 978-0393064636

A one-of-a-kind anthology of essays by brilliant women writers that provokes readers and encourages them to consider their own inner bad girl.

"I behave badly to set myself apart. To test myself. To push myself. To prove something. To shock someone....I behave badly because I can." That's how Ellen Sussman describes her deviant endeavors. To better understand them, she's invited 25 other bad girls to share their stories. Ann Hood lies, Mary Roach confesses. Lolly Winston blasts the music; Susan Straight puts the petal to the metal. Erica Jong, the original bad girl, challenges her own claim to that fame. Susan Cheever almost flunks out of prep school and then flunks her chance at redemption. Caroline Leavitt marries and cheats; Kim Addonizio celebrates a one-night stand. Roxana Robinson commits forgery. Daphne Merkin measures the penis. There's a kind of energy that gets generated when bad girls get together. These pages bristle with danger. The writers are digging deep—bad behavior lies in their souls. And what they bring to the surface reveals truths about their psyches and our society.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 26 hit-or-miss essays, women writers provide confessions ranging from the mildly naughty (Roxana Robinson forging a parental permission slip during high school) to the grimly personal (Jennifer Gilmore suffering from acute bulimia). Few of these writers cop to behavior that is genuinely, inexcusably bad (none are currently languishing in prison), but many of these stories prove intriguing and occasionally brave, nonetheless. Joyce Maynard explains her reasons for penning a memoir about her long-ago love affair with J.D. Salinger (she calls him "Jerry"), and Laura Lipmann's hilarious tale of employee abuse recounts the months of spite-fueled work at a newspaper that produced some of her best articles. Pam Houston writes movingly of the complicated relationship she shared with her late father, and Kaui Hart Hemmings's sharp "Author Questionnaire" pokes fun at the self-involved world of San Francisco moms. Though the themes are familiar (Susan Casey's Christmastime blues especially so), and some essays could have used more fine-tuning (Tobin Levy's point gets lost among an entertaining catalog of former lovers), this is a lively assortment with enough variety to hook a wide range of readers.
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About the Author

Ellen Sussman is the author of the novel On a Night Like This. She has two daughters and lives with her husband in Los Altos Hills, California. She, too, is a bad girl.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (July 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393064638
• ISBN-13: 978-0393064636
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,783,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ellen Sussman is the author of The Paradise Guest House, the New York Times bestselling novel, French Lessons and the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, On a Night Like This. She is also the editor of two anthologies, Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia Of Sex and Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave, which was a New York Times Editors Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller. She teaches writing through Stanford Continuing Studies and in private classes. Her website is www.ellensussman.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not so "bad" March 31, 2011

By E. S. Charpentier

Format:Paperback

This collection of autobiographical essays collected from women writers, some much more famous than others, was one I highly anticipated reading. I have had it on my wish list since it was published and reviewed in Bitch magazine. However, I guess I must have built it up too much in my mind, because I didn't find myself enjoying it as much as I had hoped. I had really hoped for some truly shocking revelations, but for the most part, the ladies admit to such things as driving really fast, listening to other people's confessions, eating shellfish, being so good at her job it makes other people jealous, etc. One woman finds it scandalous that she's really such a good girl that her worst offense is having forged a permission slip for another girl (although that was a really fun story to read.) The only truly salacious confession comes from Caroline Leavitt who was so insecure in her marriage that she slept with a really gross dude who taught her ballet class. The only story I really enjoyed was "Penises I Have Known", which is an essay on a decidedly vulgar topic dressed up with SAT level vocabulary, and presented in such a way that I wouldn't be surprised to see it published in a scholarly journal.
Included at the end is some biographical information for each contributor. If I had known that was there, I'd have flipped to it after reading each chapter. As it was, I discovered it at the end and had to flip back to remember who belonged to which story. It would have been nice to have that information included with the story, either at the beginning or immediately following, like a lot of science fiction collections do.
Although none of the essays are terrible, and almost all were fun to read, I just didn't relish reading the book as much as I expected to.... It's completely possible that this is my fault. It's also possible that I've been such a bad girl that nothing really scandalizes me any more. Read more ›

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and Sad and Wonderful August 26, 2007

By Margaret

Format:Hardcover

These refreshingly frank essays will leave you crying and laughing out loud. From Kaui Hart Hemmings "Author Questionnaire" and Lolly Winston's "Turn it Up!" (the two funniest) to Erica Jong's "My Dirty Secret" and Ellen Sussman's "Consider the Slut" (two of the most thought-provoking) to "Carolynn Leavitt's "Bad Dancer" and Joyce Maynard's "A Good Girl Goes Bad" (both frank and moving), this collection will have you reconsidering and embracing the bad girl--in a very good way.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "Bad girls are not born but made." August 20, 2007

By Luan Gaines HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I began reading about bad girl behavior (although "girl" is a bit disconcerting) with a favorite author's offering, Susan Straight's "Reckless". Returning to the wild days of rock and roll, fast cars and a brother who shared the heady freedom of her childhood, Straight describes the heart-racing thrill of flying over a dusty road, pedal to the metal, music blaring, the scent of cannabis in the air. Because I came of age in the same area and experienced a similar joy in racing my mother's car on back roads, I could easily empathize with such abandonment, if only temporary, touched by the personal loss that remains part of those sweet memories.

Katherine Weber writes about the night she and a close friend climbed an as yet unfinished tower of the World Trade Center, ready for the future from the ninety-ninth floor, the wind howling in the night. Years later, she remembers the exquisite sensation, one of the first people to enjoy the stunning view, the foolish plans of untested youth before the changes the years bring. So far my "Bad Girl" selections have proved nostalgic, but I've yet to encounter any really naughty behavior as promised in the title. Perhaps Erica Jong will restore my faith in "My Dirty Secret". Uh, oh. Jong's bad girl is, after all, a fraud: "She is my self-created monster." Rather than a revealing essay, Jong renders an apology on female writers, claiming women writers are treated similarly to female politicians: "damned for being all the things they need to be in order to be heard", for example, Hillary Clinton, Arianna Huffington, and feminist history's heroine, Queen Elizabeth I.

In "Lying", Ann Hood sits through a makeover in Bendel's, lying about every aspect of her life to appear more mysterious.... Staring at the visionary creature in the mirror, long-lashed, full-lipped, Hood manufactures the appropriate persona, not a suburban woman who will soon be boarding a train to Rhode Island. Proudly claiming a heritage of self-professed liars, Hood confesses to indulging all the time, but "I never lie about things that matter". Desperate now, I turn to Elizabeth Benedict's "The Thrill of a Well-Placed F***". What was I thinking? Benedict shares her struggle to balance language with propriety and the sheer joy of a string of expletives. Looking back, she is more judicious, not particularly anxious to pass this habit along.

Eventually I discover a few gems, like Daphne Merkin's intriguing essay on male anatomy, but the pithy topic is weighted with innuendo and a temptation to snicker, even after all these years. At least Merkin fulfills the title's promise of sizzling hot confessions in this compilation. Though the collection is thoroughly entertaining, I was hoping for a bit more salacious material, somewhat disappointed but engaged as well. Perhaps what seems so exciting and dangerous when we are young only evokes nostalgia through the bifocals of time. If this is all we have to share with our daughters, they will never believe that we engaged in the spontaneity and questionable judgment of youth, that we too thought we could change the world. Luan Gaines/2007. Read more ›

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't miss it! July 18, 2007

By S. Goodman

Format:Hardcover

This is a must read book. The different essays will make you laugh and cry, but mostly they'll make you think about your own "bad" experiences. Couldn't put it down.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, just smart, normal girls (3.75 *s) September 24, 2008

By J. Grattan TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Perhaps the notion of a book on "bad girl" behavior may bring to mind a version of "Girls Gone Wild," but with few exceptions the personal accounts in this collection do not involve sexual escapades. Much of the behavior in these essays falls into such categories as breaking rules, rebelling against authority, flouting conventions, and even self-destructiveness. A lot of the behavior could perhaps better be seen as pushing against constraints imposed by parents and institutions that make growing up difficult. Some of the behavior in these essays may be more painful to witness or experience than it is liberating.

Many of the women write of the oppressiveness of school in their teenage years, especially religious and boarding schools. The resentment and difficulties of those experiences may be best seen when one author, Susan Cheever, returns to her school as an esteemed alumnus and proceeds to wear out her welcome by reading a sexually explicit passage from her work in front of an assembly of students. Family estrangement is well represented from Pam Houston's reluctance to attend her father's funeral to Susan Casey's skipping Christmas with her parents. Personal insecurities played out in the form of being a habitual liar or being bulimic are certainly more painful than bad.

It is highly unlikely that the subject of "sexual awakening" would not be a part of a bad girl collection. Much of that occurs under the restrictions of the aforementioned schools and parents. In addition, both Mary Roach and M.J. Rose write of the sexual charged atmosphere of the confessional; Ellen Sussman writes of nascent erogenous feelings in make out sessions; Joyce Maynard, as a teenager, goes from good girl to being mistress of J.D.... Salinger for a year; Maggie Estep, under the influence of a slutty girlfriend, is initiated to sexual experience by an older horse thief; and Katherine Weber experiences closeness on the top of the World Trade Center. More adventuresome are the exploits of Tobin Levy, who flies cross-country for a marathon sexual encounter, and Kim Addonizio, who taps a lucky stranger on the shoulder in a bar.

Essays on listening to loud music and driving too fast don't work so well. In addition, Daphne Merkin's attempt to get up close and personal with male anatomy lacks focus. As in all such collections, the essays have mixed appeal, are often incomplete, and are a bit repetitious. Nonetheless, they do legitimately capture female experiences.

Leave it to Erica Jong in the last essay to lend some perspective on bad girls. She contends, "The very notions of good and bad girls are dictated by male fears." In her estimation, a bad girl is no more than a "full human being." The essays back her up. They all depict real world, common behavior. These writers are all wonderful girls in their complexity and ability to communicate their experiences. Not a bad one among them.

PS - To read perhaps more gripping stories than these, five of these authors are also contributors to "The Other Woman" ed by Victoria Zackheim. They are Cheever, Houston, Leavitt, Sussman, and Weber. Teenage "badness" pales in comparison to marriages gone bad. Read more ›