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

Wendy Wasserstein's untimely death in the winter of 2006, at the young age of 55, robs us of what should have been decades more of her witty, generous-spirited but sharp, wise feminst humor. These essays are a delight, giving us much over which to ponder and chuckle, even in our sadness, knowing as we do that the mind and spirit creating them have left us. Read them to savor baby boom feminism in mid-life, and to honor the memory of a great woman of letters.

Wendy Wasserstein, the acerbic, often-hilarious Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright, brings her trademark dry humor to this sweet collection of essays. Ms. Wasserstein writes what she knows about-theatre, New York City, looking for love, trying to lose weight, friends, and making the decision to have her first child at the age of 48. Many of these essays are magical, but could be an acquired taste. For those of you who love biting autobiographical satire can look no further.

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.

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