Customer Reviews

Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties

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Wendy Wasserstein's essays are thoughtful, smart, poignant, sometimes riotously funny, and kind. Like their author they are approachable and unpretentious. She explains in her Preface, " I seem to write continually about politics, the arts, and women's equality. But I am not ashamed of my concurrent interest in real estate, diet, and my mother." It is at the confluence of her dozen or so passions that one is so helplessly and happily drawn in.

Wasserstein's many concerns - all delightfully described - range from the ridiculous (dieting, Manhattan real estate, Hollywood stars) to the sublime: family (especially Mom and sisters), friends, personal history, New York theater (she adores it, and has since childhood), the importance of art to education and to life. "For children, the arts are not simply icing on the cake. They are a way of including everyone in a joint, and joyous, venture." In addition: love, loyalty, and the terrific inner (and outer) life of their author. She has a lot of great friends, and they say some very funny things sometimes. She has never married, and has a take on that state of affairs that is a pleasure to read.

Wasserstein chronicles the harrowing (because premature and complicated, necessitating many good doctors and a group of supportive friends ) birth of her daughter - and the months following - in " Days of Awe: The Birth of Lucy Jane," a piece that is at once poignant, full of information, and at times, so funny as to provoke a side ache.

The Wasserstein family of origin is a constant source of humor and is reflected upon with tenderness that is never cloying - just full of love.

I loved this collection and marvel at the ability of its author to talk so smartly and passionately about herself, to care deeply about improving the world, and to work toward that end - while at the same time conveying quite clearly to the reader that when she's through, she'll be right there - in order to hear what might be your own very interesting story. A great read.

This book contains 25 essays, collected from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and a variety of other sources, by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein. The book takes us on a funny yet touching roller-coaster ride from the devestating loss of a loved one to the joy of childbirth. Wasserstein is a very human narrator whose humor and heart allow her to take the most personal situation and make it into a universal truth.

This collection of essays Wasserstein wrote for newspapers and magazines, including the NYTimes and The New Yorker, also includes one new essay, the hilarious and deeply affecting "How I spent My Forties."

All the essays are strong, and many have moments that made me laugh out loud. Even though there are 35 essays across the 235 pages, this book does have a bit of a narrative thread to it, which provides the book's greatest pleasures. Her essays about her beloved sister Sandra, who battled cancer, and her own efforts to have a child form the emotional core of the book. Wasserstein feels that, as you get older, life becomes sadder and more humorours, citing her sister's pleasure at the weight loss caused by chemo. This is a terrific collection.

The title, by the way, comes from the first essay, a New Yorker humor piece in response to that brief period when it seemed everyone (Tom Stoppard, Madeleine Albright, even "New Yorker" Hilary Clinton--the NY Post ran a headline that said something like OY VEY, HILARY'S JEWISH) was discovering their jewish roots. So Wasserstein "discovered" her episcopalean roots. It's a funny essay in an excellent collection.

I bought this book for light reading while traveling this summer. I understand that most of the pieces were put together for publications like New Yorker, Harper's, etc. But really, I think we could live without all the gratuitous name-dropping and constant self-loathing references to her weight problem. In addition Ms. Wasserstein makes it clear, through her sublimated anger, that she carries a grudge because she didn't realize her true potential as a female until she was grown. Hey, me too! It's the same old song, having to re-learn the rules of life as a woman with brains. Hey, me too! Get over it. If she would just get on with the stories, without the long and tedious set-up they might be amusing. But the road she takes us on is an old one. We women have all been down that road and back. Life goes on... Too bad she uses such references as crutches to prop up a lack of cutting edge wit and wisdom. Dorothy Parker, she ain't. This was a book I had a hard time picking up.

I have never read Ms. Wasserstein before, but was intrigued. Unfortunately, I found that however great her essays or plays may be, they do not translate well in audio CD. The first 3/5 CDs are largely devoted to "fluff" topics, and the humor is very tongue in cheek. But, I found none of it terribly funny--sort of the usual worn out jokes regarding datable men, apartment renovation, lunch with one's mother, trying to diet, etc. Easy to skip over fluff in a book, but not so easy on a CD. This is made even more problematic by the audio CD format. You cannot fast foward on the CDs; there are no internal "chapters". So, if you take out the CD from your car or computer, be prepared to lose the first 30 minutes you listened to and have to start all over again next time. Crazy! Never seen a CD like this before! The computer indeed shows everything as one giant track... Also, each of the 5 CDs has less than an hour on it. Seems like more could have been squeezed in... they need to fix this if they re-issue these.

I do think overall the CD set is worth purchasing for the last 2 CDs, which are candid accounts of her sister's battle with cancer, and her own fertility procedures, and the eventual arrival of her daughter. For those of us hoping to have a child in advanced years, and fascinated by Ms. Wasserstein's ability to do it at 48, it's a fairly sobering tale. It's not even clear to me from the rather long account of the fertility treatments, which occurred over many years, whether Ms. Wasserstein was the genetic mother of the child, or if she ultimately used egg donation to achieve the pregnancy. It is also clear she spent a fortune on all the procedures. Moreover, the delivery and aftermath of it were obviously trying for the author and her entire family, although there are moments of levity in the account.

The finest, funniest, most satisfying collection of essays on contemporary life currently available in the English language.