Lipshtick - Hardcover

Macsai, Gwen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060191015 ISBN 13: 9780060191016

Publisher: Harper, 2000

Synopsis

Get comfy, pull up a pan of blondies, and settle in for some girlfriend talk. Get the lowdown on who's low and how's down, whose long-standing but unspoken conflict with her mother is contributing to her sexual repression, and whose boyfriend named his penis. A hysterical send-up of everyday life and love with lots of heart, Lipshtick is a quick fix, a good schmooze, a heartfelt sob or two.

It will take you on a trip through things universal to all pairs of X chromosomes worth their salt: for coping with social dances in junior high (where the sexes meet like a hormonal high noon) to the joys of plucking out your chin hair like evil weeds; from the natural order of a girl's fantasies (like sweets that don't make you fat, spending that doesn't break the bank, a beautiful nap in the middle of a long day) to why flings with bad boys are the ultimate in dating pleasure (finding the right boy to lust after is a lifelong struggle--eventually you grow to be picky about who rejects you); from getting married (His best quality? He was like family. His worst quality? He was like family.) to the sad state of postnatal breasts. Gwen Macsai cover it all--with a shtick twist. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll thank God you're not her. No situation unaccounted for, no mole left unexamined, Macsai captures a woman's life from her first leg-shave to her last dose of hormone replacement therapy.

When you finish Lipshtick you'll have added another great girlfriend to your already glittering array. And in this world you can't have enough girlfriends or laughter.

About this title

About the Author:

Gwen Macsai is an award-winning independent writer and producer whose pieces have aired on National Public Radio over the past nine years. In her thirteen years in radio, Macsai has worked on some of the highest quality programming on the air--All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. She has won several awards in independent radio production and is trained in improvisational theater. She lives in Evanstaon, Illinois, with her husband, Paul, and their three children.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A candid, often clichd, but always comic frolic revealing the inner life of girls, dates, brides, wives and mothers. This is Macsai's virgin book, but she's been around the block as an award-winning NPR radio writer and producer. A taste of her wit and scope is seen in chapter headings: The Blunder Years, The Ova Office, Vanity Hair, Love and Hisses, Till Death Do Us Part (At Least 50% of the Time), and From Here to Maternity. While the recollections of anxious adolescence are evocative and genuine, they echo familiar teen TV series and movies. Saving this farrago from mediocrity are perceptive observations, for instance, about the moment ``when the music of AM radio starts to replace the blood in your veins and you could never hear it again without being physically moved.'' Macsai is too eager a victim of men to be a feminist, but she extols the value of girlfriends and prefers ``girl crushes'' to ``boy crushes'' for their lifelong loyalty. Especially when it comes to her love of flings (``all the thrill of an affair without the home wrecking''), the author can embarrass us with her lack of self-respect. Like a female Woody Allen, she turns her neuroses into entertainment: ``What could be more exciting than the adorable way he never calls you back?'' Somehow, this Jewish girl looking for that prime catch or bad-boy fling finds herself dating a fanatic who thanks Jesus for a great cup of coffee. Her self-deprecating humor gets better with age, when it involves fighting weight gain and drooping breasts and tolerating husbands bellyaching and babies spitting up. Children are the last and largest item on Macsai's list of things that test female stoicism by passing through the vaginaafter menstrual blood, swabs, yeast, medication, fingers, penises, and birth-control devices. Can we talk? An irresistible invitation from the Nineties successor to Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers. (Cosmopolitan Book Club; author tour) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0060191015
• ISBN 13: 9780060191016
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272