LitPicks - April '09

What Women Want, Really: Earth to Freud...earth to Freud.... Why was it so hard for the great man to know what women wanted? This month's books answer his question: women want what men want—love, family, and freedom to pursue dreams.

A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully Written | Great Works




Good Grief
Lolly Winston, 2004
342 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Why would I place the story of a young woman struggling to cope with her husband's death under "A Lighter Touch?" Because even while tracing the stages of grief, this book does so with sweetness and humor.

Funny, self-deprecating, and sly, Sophie Stanton makes us laugh as she drags herself out of the depths and begins to rebuild her life. Here she is attending a group counseling session for grieving survivors:

     Dr. Ruppert thinks the group will help me move
     from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to
     acceptance to hope to lingerie to housewares to gift
     wrap. But it seems the elevator is stuck.

But the elevator gets unstuck as Sophie leaves Silicon Valley and heads to Ashland, Washington. After struggling as a waitress, she eventually opens her own bakery. Along the way, she meets a handsome man (No! Really?), mentors a rebellious 13-year-old, and creates a family out of whole cloth. Love, family, career—voila! Sophie gets it all.

Though hardly a feminist tract, Grief answers Freud's famous question—what do women want?—in a warm, engaging manner. Unfortunately, Winston loses her punch toward the end: she has trouble maintaining the witty edge of the early sections, and the love story is, like, totally Seventeen magazine-ish.

Still, I like Winton's breezy style and her quirky characters. This is a delightful read that manages to affirm the very thing women want—a life of their own choice.

See our LitLovers Good Grief Reading Guide.

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The Ten-Year Nap
Meg Wolitzer, 2008
400 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Meg Wolitzer is a terrific writer. She's funny, wise and trenchant—a fine portraitist of the small gesture, the moments that make up our lives.

Here she considers women, a generation after the onset of feminism, who opted out of the Career-With-Kids-I-Can-Do-It-All path. But now their children are 10, in school till mid-afternoon, which leads moms wondering how to fill up their time?

The book opens on a typical school morning. Alarm clocks go off all over NYC and its surrounds, waking up women from...well, from more than just a night's sleep. Given the title, the alarms represent a larger wake-up call.

The novel is told primarily through the voices of four women—all friends who've put their dreams on hold and who now question their lives, marriages, and usefulness. Marital, financial, and child-rearing stress add to their angst. But Wolitzer is careful not to bog us down in a depressing miasma. She's too much of a sharp, witty observer to allow that— some of her writing will make you snort with knowing laughter. (Well, I snort.)

My only gripe about Nap is its busyness—so many characters to follow that, while I sympathized, it was hard to care deeply about them. The ending, by the way, is ambiguous—but smart—which I do appreciate. After all, there is no easy instruction manual on Having-It-All, not for men or women. That's equality.

I think there will be meaty discussions with this book. Be sure to see our Reading Guide for The Ten-Year Nap.

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The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan, 1963
382 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
You can't read it, but here's what the fine print at the bottom of the book cover (on the left) says:

Changed the world so comprehensively that it's hard to remember how much change was called for.—New York Times

It's difficult to imagine that a single work could have such impact—especially one written by a women many considered anathema: angry, strident and abrasive. Friedan was a lightening rod for controversy.

Mystique is shocking and infuriating. Friedan quotes from a host of sources— popular magazines, advertisers, academics, psychiatrists, Margaret Mead (!)—all insisting that any woman seeking fulfillment outside the home was masculinized, dangerous, and unlovable. And this in the 1950's!

All of which is reason enough to read this work, especially for younger women. When teaching, I was dumbstruck by how many 18- 19- or 20-year-olds belittled old-style "feminists," and who had no idea how hard-fought was the very privilege they so took for granted—sitting in a classroom, pursuing business or science as a career.

Mystique is no feminist screed—it's academic in tone: sober, well-researched and documented. You'll want to read with a pencil—because you'll be driven to mark or jot down passage after passage...after passage to bring up for discussion.

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