Memoirous

Florida Lauren Groff Riverhead Books, New York 2018 I am a capricious reader—of Lauren Groff. Her Fates & Furies infuriated me. I read it because it was mentioned in a group review of House Frau by Jill Alexander Essbaum, a good friend of mine. There was at the time a certain “wokeness” of reviewers about women and sex. I know, ridiculous. The idea was that these books should be grouped together because women in them were having sex. Which didn’t make sense because had not one of the reviewers read Madame Bovary ? Maybe they were put together because it was women writing novels about sex. Either way, even the categorization was infuriating. Fates & Furies went on to be highly lauded: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A FINALIST FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NPR MORNING EDITION BOOK CLUB PICK NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, TIME, THE SEATTLE TIMES, MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE, SLATE, LIBRARY JOURNAL, KIRKUS, AND MANY MORE Yo...

Fates and Furies , Lauren Groff Hausfrau , Jill Alexander Essbaum I Want to Show You More, Jamie Quatro Lately I’ve seen these 3 titles grouped together. Possibly because they released around the same time, but I think for another reason. The main characters, females, are sexually bold. Perhaps coming on the heels of 50 Shades of Grey, reviewers have clumped these titles. Okay, so we already know that women can have sex and that many actually do. We also have heard rumors that they like it. So none of this should be a surprise. But, the fact that these books released around the same time perhaps made it seem like a phenomena. The main characters do not shy away from sex—yet there is, lingering around the fuzzy edges, fear. Fear that it might not be enough. Definitely Essbaum’s Anna (often compared to Emma in Madame Bovary) begins to come unhinged. She has a husband, she has a lover, and she has flings, quickies in the backyard. Etc. Yet she is unhappy, unsa...

Hausfrau When I first met Jill Essbaum she was a poet. Now nearly a dozen years later she is still a poet—plus a bestselling New York Times author . The above link describes Jill as a writer of erotica. I know people who write erotica and usually they don’t use their real name. (Hey! No judgment here—these gals are making BIG money writing racy eBooks. Friends who by day write children’s lit and by night pay the bills under a pseudonym.) More than for looking for sex in all the “wrong” places, Jill loves to uncover a pun. Word play is her forte. And, let’s face it, innuendo is one of the easiest ways to get one’s attention. It sounds like I’m writing one thing and really I’m saying something else. That kind of writing engages the whole mind because it makes you question—is it her or me who’s thinking about . . . ? In many ways Hausfrau is straight forward. It is literature and sexy. It is suspenseful and allows for word play—such as the scenes where the questioni...