Editor Daniel Jones’ selections are interesting and surprisingly even in quality. Perhaps too even; the themes and voices can be too uniform, and the collection is grouped by similarity rather than variety. I thought there were 20 essays too many, but I enjoyed them more once I started to skip and skim.
Why “modern” love?
The collection hits some obviously modern notes: flirting by text message, a painful conversion from housewife to feminist, being lovers and colleagues, sperm donors, gay adoption. The essays also touch on a mobile society: the long-distance romances and pseudo-familial relationships developed by people living far from home. Implicit too is a set of male/female relationships that I’m not sure older generations have experienced: unisex dorm life, cross-sex friendships, and mixed housing situations lasting long after college.My favorite essays are those that directly address modern culture, particularly Waldman, Korelitz, and Hekker. For those writers who hew to the more personal, Jones appends “where are they now” updates that I find slightly jarring. Each piece is short, and many are online, so I’ll just point to a few of the interesting ones.
Seeking: R We D8ing?
In this section romance is largely about the writer, not the other person. In Sandra Barron’s R We D8ing?, an exchange of cryptic one-liners (from R we still on 4 2morrow? to What did I do 2 upset u?) is a mini-relationship with a full complement of emotional highs and lows. It’s fascinating that we can invest meaning in even such a sparse exchange.Mindy Hung’s I Seemed Plucky and Game, Even To Myself describes playing a role to be desirable. Trey Ellis' Who's That Lady in the Bedroom, Daddy? feels unfinished, but it’s unusually sweet for this collection.
Finding: I Think I Love You
Howie Kahn's The Third Half of a Couple evokes years of group living. Good roommates can become as close as family or lovers. Kahn takes that intimacy a step farther, using his friends as a shield against dating.I depend on the stability of their marriage; I need them to stay together so I can go where they go and do what they do. Simply put, I'm their third wheel.
Breeding: What to Expect That You're Least Expecting
Ann Hood's Now I Need a Place to Hide Away touches on music and memory and the joy of a shared obsession. The TMI problem of Helaine Olen's The New Nanny Diaries Are Online may ring a bell if you’ve ever google-stalked a friend. Dan Savage writes honestly about the pitfalls of open adoption.Staying: The Ties That Bind
Ayelet Waldman contributes a controversial essay, Truly, Madly, Guiltily, that I've read before but always enjoy.I am the only woman in Mommy and Me who seems to be, well, getting any. ... I love my children. But I am not in love with them. I am in love with their father.Jean Hanff Korelitz's Sleeping with the Guitar Player has a surprise ending from a cynical start:
in the last few years I've experienced, via my husband, another masculine stage, one I'd been blissfully unaware of. This is the time of a man's life that I must now and forever think of as the guitar-in-the-basement phase.I’m sure some readers hate her framing of the guitar-in-the-basement in terms of gender and ambition; it’s as provocative as Waldman’s essay.
Leaving: The Ties That Fray
I like the honesty of Terry Martin Hekker's 2006 essay on motherhood and feminism, Paradise Lost (Domestic Division):In the continuing case of Full-Time Homemaker v. Working Mother, I offer myself as Exhibit A. Because more than a quarter-century ago I wrote an Op-Ed article for the New York Times on the satisfaction of being a full-time housewife in the new age of the liberated woman. I wrote it from my heart, thoroughly convinced that homemaking and raising my children was the most challenging and rewarding job I could ever want.Read her 1977 Op-Ed as well. The essays are both passionate and forthright, though they present different viewpoints thirty years apart.
Bound: Family Ties
I find Leaving and Bound difficult sections to read. They’re too much alike, a litany of strangely similar divorces and deaths. Skipping around in the book helps, but neither the situations nor the telling can hold my interest through these final sections.Overall this collection might be a C+, but a few pieces in it were excellent. I’ve read my fill for now, but I discovered some interesting personalities through the columns.
2 Comments:
I read some of the stories (until The NY Times stopped me) and whilst I liked them, I didn't love them. I don't know if I could read fifty.
I agree about the modern culture stories appealing (the one about the short lived relationship-via-text made me laugh) and the general inclination to be a little pessimistic and miserable.
I Seemed Plucky and Game, even to myself is another good one.
Have you read Varieties of Disturbance yet? I would be interested to hear if its worth reading (I note the Amazon reviewers were not all kind). It looks interesting.
Thanks to the New Yorker short story podcast, I found a short story writer I've never read before - Lorrie Moore. I'm reading Birds of America at the moment, and enjoying it very much.
whilst I liked them, I didn't love them. I don't know if I could read fifty.
Exactly. They're interesting, but collectively they aren't really strong enough to merit such an extensive collection. There's a reason I don't read the column regularly--but I'd hoped the book would really winnow down the essays to the few very best. Which perhaps it did, so I've just winnowed it still farther here :)
I'm reading Birds of America at the moment, and enjoying it very much.
Oh, super. Birds of America's been on my to-read list for a while. I'm glad to hear you like her writing.
I started Varieties of Disturbance but didn't love it. I'm not sure whether I'll pick it up again.
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