Shiksa Goddess, or, How I Spent My Forties: Essays

Celebrated playwright and magnetic wit Wendy Wasserstein has been firmly rooted in New York’s cultural life since her childhood of Broadway matinees, but her appeal is universal. Shiksa Goddess collects thirty-five of her urbane, inspiring, and deeply empathic essays–all written when she was in her forties, and all infused with her trademark irreverent humor.The full range of Wasserstein’s mid-life obsessions are covered in this eclectic collection: everything from Chekhov, politics, and celebrity, to family, fashion, and real estate. Whether fretting over her figure, discovering her gentile roots, proclaiming her love for ordered-in breakfasts, lobbying for affordable theater, or writing tenderly about her very Jewish mother and her own daughter, born when she was forty-eight and single, Wasserstein reveals the full, dizzying life of a shiksa goddess with unabashed candor and inimitable style.

Shiksa goddess —
A place they’d never seen: the theater —
Hillary Clinton’s muddled legacy —
The forty-eight-hour turnaround —
How suite it is —
The LUMP list —
She saw through us —
First ladies get dressed —
Good, better, Bette —
Diary —
Three sisters —
Afternoon of a fan —
How to do a Hollywood awards ceremony —
Don’t tell workshop —
Wendy’s workshop —
The holiday chronicles —
My low-fat dinner with Jamie Lee Curtis —
Jill’s adventures in real estate: or, I can get it for you at 3.2 —
Women beware women —
Designing men —
The muse that mewed —
Heidi chronicled —
The me I’d like to be —
Mom says every day is Mother’s Day —
Waif goodbye, hello bulge —
Making nice: when is enough enough? —
The state of the arts —
Dear Broadway, this isn’t really goodbye —
Poles apart —
Ah, that first feast in wild Manhattan —
New York theater: isn’t it romantic —
Directing 101: George Abbott on what works —
Theater problems? Call Dr. Chekhov —
How I spent my forties —
Days of awe: the birth of Lucy Jane