From Publishers Weekly
These essays admirably demonstrate the myriad ways women are re-creating their lives according to their vision of power, love or community. But freelance journalist Hochman's writing is less compelling: metaphors like "her voice sounded like crepe being pulled over a washboard" are distracting. And her wide-eyed description of her discovery of the sexism at the root of marriage laws will surprise those who've read even a minimal amount of feminist literature. Luckily, balance is provided with the everyday lives of real people, from single mothers, lesbian mothers or straight couples without children. A lesbian couple's tales of coming out include the difficulties of trying to get a joint membership at a discount warehouse. The author herself develops a sensual private ritual of challah-making every Friday afternoon as a reminder of her Jewish heritage. Roberta Achtenberg tells how, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, she helps shape public policy to recognize the many ways families live; she introduced her son on inauguration day, saying "he has played with so many different kinds of kids . . . that he already understands that having two moms is not the only legitimate form of family. First serial to Ms.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
This lively book celebrates women who defy conventional norms in attempts to live more freely and attain their dreams. Hochman gives us the joys and sorrows of lesbian relationships both with and without commitment ceremonies, artificially inseminated babies, and adopted infants. She portrays heterosexual couples who fall in and out of living together, their love spanning decades without benefit of the formal institution of marriage. She presents a single mother helped in parenting by a tia, a close friend who is more than an aunt or a godmother. She shows us lovers growing old, children growing tall, and communal living arrangements continuing for years. As she does so, Hochman also discloses a continuum of women who have reinvented caring, bonding, and commitment both to others and to self: people who choose to live without partners but with their art, women who consciously wrestle with choosing childlessness, Hochman herself making challah weekly in "a ritual that now brings wholeness to my weeks." In short, in this book Hochman redefines family in ways that are always refreshing and sometimes breathtaking. Whitney Scott
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
