.com "This book was born out of anger," begins Cathi Hanauer, which seems appropriate considering the book's title: The Bitch in the House. What could have been a collective gripe about the day-to-day routine of holding a family or relationship together is instead a witty, and sometimes bitchy, read. These postfeminist mothers, lovers, wives, and independent women candidly put forward their anger in the taffy-pull world of household responsibility. Jill Bialosky puts it most succinctly, "I had wanted to get married, but I realized now that I had never wanted to be a 'wife'." There are essays written by those who willfully, and often playfully, seek a life independent from domesticated routine, and others who have aged past the concerns of being a self-fulfilled and responsible mother. Author and poet Ellen Gilchrist, who is also a mother and a grandmother, sets this lasting tone of contentment, "Family and work. Family and work. I can let them be at war, with guilt as their nuclear weapon and mutually assured destruction as their aim, or I can let them nourish each other." Not entirely angry, it is ultimately a satisfying read. There are no intended messages on how women can improve their relationships with their husbands, partners, and children. That is the beauty of the book. They have instead revealed modern motherhood, and solitude, as it is, and may have been all along. --Karin RosmanFrom Publishers WeeklyIn the spirit of Virginia Woolf, who wrote of killing the "Angel in the House," these 26 women mostly professional writers focus on the inner "bitch": the frustration, anger and rage that's never far from the surface of many women's lives. They sound off on the difficult decisions of living with lovers, marrying, staying single and having children. Those who haven't chosen the single life are almost always frustrated by their mates' incompetence or their toddlers' neediness. (They reserve special scorn for overly laid-back live-in lovers content to live off a hardworking woman's checkbook.) While a handful of entries touch other sources of anger being criticized for one's weight, simultaneously caring for ailing parents and a young family, coping with a husband who's out to win his baby daughter's loyalty most focus on the love vs. work problem. For many of these women, this means a struggle over the right to be a bitch and inflict unpleasantness on others for the sake of a higher goal (one's work) versus the feminine imperative to "make nice." While unbridled rage is terribly cathartic even in print it's the quieter moments that provide more food for thought. Daphne Merkin's observation that she's "more equipped to handle the risks of loneliness than those of intimacy" and thus better off divorced, or Nancy Wartik's thought that "some compromises might actually be healthy," will ring true for many readers. Others may find it comforting to know that even smart, articulate, successful women can have deeply unsettled inner lives.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalDespite the flippant title, the 26 very good writers gathered here offer thoughtful personal accounts that address important questions: Which life objectives should one pursue? Which are attainable, negotiable, or wise? When do we know we are the person we are meant to become? These are honest voices, recognizing that, whatever we might wish, a great deal of what happens to us is beyond our control. Among the contributors are such familiar names as Ellen Gilchrist, Chitra Divakaruni, Natalie Angier, and Hope Edelman, all of whom have written original pieces for this collection. Most of the writers take on some basic feminist precepts, particularly those concerning relationships between men and women, and if the picture they paint is accurate and sometimes a little bitter, it is also often wickedly funny. The writing spans three generations of women, and the younger the women the more surprised they are with how little the script has changed in the melodrama of romance. Edited by Hanauer (My Sister's Bones), a former book columnist at Glamour and Mademoiselle, this essay anthology will offer comfort to real women living real lives. Morrow plans much publicity, so public libraries should stock up. Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DCCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. can reading be bad for you The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. 'When she is Good she is Very Good, and When she is Bad she is Very Bad"....at essaysBy Rabid ReaderI wanted to like this book a lot more than I did.The premise, having a collection of essays by women who write about their lives, their feelings, experiences, thoughts, disappointments and successes and hopes for the future. It should have been fascinating.Some of the essays were very good. Others not so much.The simple cause of one of the problems, which I did not expect at all to find, is that pretty much every essayist is a professional writer.Right there, you have a very, very skewed perspective. I expected writers, but..... after reading this, realized that despite a sort of surface difference in authors, the book was slanted simply by this demographic.Plus, a few of the essayists appear not to have spent much time on their work--a few had that off-the-cuff, ill-thought-out tenor. This may or may not be true, but to me, some of the writing was less than stellar. Others, of course, seemed very gifted at their craft. Some writers were very insightful, others....seemed not to see their forests for their trees.In addition, most of the women seemed fairly young---not all, but enough that again, the perspective was skewed. And again, a few of the essays by the younger writers were not well articulated. (One reviewer here, I think, calls this: whiny.) Rather than whiny, I think the women simply had not the experience to frame their lives for other readers, in a less grating way.Overall, I did find this worth reading.[And I have bought the second book--which looks at the lives of some (not all) of the women in this book as they've moved through time and life. There are also new writers. I'm finding these essays more mature broad in perspective and in the approaches used to write them. I will review this next book when I've finished it.]I think if you are interested in women, feminism, social trends and /or just like essays, you might enjoy this. If you've a beef with the perceptions of women, probably not.4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. 'Two people in the same circumstances, having different experiences.'By SchmadrianI read this book, then followed it with its bookend, 'The Bastard on the Couch'. It was a very interesting combination.This tone of 'Bitch' is dark. Lots of anger. Lots of complaint. Lots of railing from its authors at almost every turn. As with its precursor, 'Bastard' is written by accomplished writers (although admittedly there seem to be more editors on the distaff side), but the tone is...well, more playful. Less 'serious', to my eyes. And much more broad in its scope, ranging far from what I expected, having read 'Bitch' first. It made for an intriguing contrast.I felt, in retrospect, that the starting points of the books were different. And one of the 'Bastard' essays illuminates this brilliantly, bringing into play (no pun intended) what it's like for an accomplished outfielder when the ball comes off the bat, when instinct takes over, and 'the right moves' are made. The author was in awe of his partner's smooth reactions to situations that he clearly had no experience in. Now, this raises the question of 'naturalness' of child-rearing, of nuturing...*that* whole discussion. But this too is dealt with quite nicely with the supposition that if men don't have exposure to 'providing care' when they're young, and they haven't watched their 'at work' fathers doing it, where are they supposed to get their insight from?Another prickly issue raised is what women bring to the whole process of changing roles. Specifically, their own expectations, not only of their partners, but of themselves; if they're essentially deciding where the bar is placed, how egalitarian are things?Of the two books, 'Bitch' is more confrontational, more examining in its approach. It presents a near-endless litany of complaints about how things have changed in the world of child-rearing, but in the end, doesn't really provide a whole lot of solutions, save for the admission that as working mothers, what they really need are wives. 'Bastard' is the more looping, more free-range, not really addressing the hard-core issues that its counterpart grinds into fine powder. I really enjoyed some of the 'Esquire'-y essays...but was disappointed that the same tack hadn't really been taken as the gals; to wit, trying to answer the question 'How can we make this work?' (Because really, for many women, even those who love their husbands to death, it ain't working.)Both books 'suffer' from the fact that there are so many 'writers' involved. It limits the scopes of he collections, as this is a *very* small cross-section of society. Ditto for the fact that most couples don't have the options some of these do. (As a personal note, I have friends who are business execs and have a live-in nanny. Another couple I've known for years both work, but have never had this luxury. Their stories could not be more different, and I think how they approach raising their kids also vary greatly. Seeing more than one slant in these books would have made for a better read in both cases.)Each book had its heart-wrenching moments as well as essays that simply did not belong. Bad editorial choices were made in each; I'll leave it up to the readers to figure out which.I highly recommend both of these books. In fact, I would hate to think someone would read just one. Yin just doesn't work without its yang.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Best Impulse Read EverBy ThatWeirdMillennialThis is the best book in the whole world, and I've recommended it to all my ladies. If you've ever felt like the biggest b*tch in the house, these wonderful pages will be your support group.