Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties (Hardcover)

~ Wendy Wasserstein (Author) "I cannot tell a lie..." (more)
Key Phrases: shiksa goddess, New York, Shiksa Goddess, Jamie Lee (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Wendy Wasserstein is best known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, but she has also spent 10 years penning brisk, mostly comic, often touching essays for magazines. Here they are, niftily collected in Shiksa Goddess; or, How I Spent My Forties. Though there's much to be said for her brisk interview with Bette Midler, written in the form of a comic play (if we're to believe Wasserstein, the two of them rowed around Manhattan harmonizing on "Shine On Harvest Moon") and some of the other occasional essays, the heart of the book is her portraiture of her family. She immortalizes her mother, Lola Wasserstein, in a few deft sketches. "Always look nice when you throw out the garbage," Lola warns. "You never know who you might meet." When it comes to cards, "Lola encourages sending 'the very, very best,' a homemade greeting card. A personal citation like 'I love you, Gramma' or 'Mother, I promise next year to be married with three musically inclined children, a co-op, and a degree in dentistry' is worth a thousand words."

The darkest, deepest notes are sounded in her essay on the cancer battle of her late sister, Sandra, the model for the character Sara in Wasserstein's dazzling play The Sisters Rosensweig. The book concludes with a rather heroic account of her pregnancy at age 48, which lives up to its title: "Days of Awe: The Birth of Lucy Jane." At her best, Wasserstein is an essayist of emotional delicacy, intellectual rigor, and an unconquerable funny bone. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly

Noted playwright Wasserstein offers up 35 essays, most of which have appeared over the years in such publications as the New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, Allure and the New York Times Magazine. Now in her late 40s, the humorist tackles topics such as dieting, the theater, her late cat, Manhattan real estate and Thanksgiving. She also trains her eye on public figures such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bette Midler and Jamie Lee Curtis. The book falls prey, however, to the usual dangers of such collections: repetition (The Heidi Chronicles, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, is mentioned countless times) and staleness (e.g., the Clinton-Dole debates are one essay's backdrop, and an observation that Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow "really, really love each other" undermines the opening of another). Here, we meet a single woman who, despite the trappings of success and fame, is dealing with pedestrian issues and anxieties. While these brief anecdotes tap familiar humor wells and sometimes wax sentimental, readers are duly rewarded by the final two longer essays: one deals with the breast cancer of Wasserstein's sister and the other with Wasserstein's pregnancy at age 48. Both pieces are moving, written with notable humor and heartbreaking poignancy, as when she describes her premature newborn daughter, just out of intensive care: "Lucy Jane was almost weightless. Her tiny legs dangled like a doll's. Her diaper was the size of a cigarette pack. I opened my sweater and put her inside. Her face was smaller than an apple." Wasserstein, once described as a Neil Simon for the feminist set, may at times alienate male readers, not through bashing (the men who appear are essentially likable) but rather through their exclusion from the emotional lens. Wasserstein writes for a certain audience. And for the most part, they should not be disappointed. Agents, Lynn Nesbit and Eric Simonoff. (May 15) Forecast: Fans of Wasserstein's plays will enjoy these glimpses into her private musings and personal life. Moreover, with an eight-city author tour and an appearance on NBC's Today show on May 8, she will surely broaden her appeal, ensuring healthy sales of the 25,000-copy projected first printing.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375411658
• ISBN-13: 978-0375411656
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #970,590 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essays that deserve a very long run, May 13, 2001

By	Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great stuff, June 8, 2001

By	Wendy Williams (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific--A real treat, May 12, 2001

By A Customer

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.