Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393064638 ISBN 13: 9780393064636

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

A one-of-a-kind anthology of essays by brilliant women writers that provokes readers and encourages them to consider their own inner bad girl.

"I behave badly to set myself apart. To test myself. To push myself. To prove something. To shock someone....I behave badly because I can." That's how Ellen Sussman describes her deviant endeavors. To better understand them, she's invited 25 other bad girls to share their stories. Ann Hood lies, Mary Roach confesses. Lolly Winston blasts the music; Susan Straight puts the petal to the metal. Erica Jong, the original bad girl, challenges her own claim to that fame. Susan Cheever almost flunks out of prep school and then flunks her chance at redemption. Caroline Leavitt marries and cheats; Kim Addonizio celebrates a one-night stand. Roxana Robinson commits forgery. Daphne Merkin measures the penis. There's a kind of energy that gets generated when bad girls get together. These pages bristle with danger. The writers are digging deep―bad behavior lies in their souls. And what they bring to the surface reveals truths about their psyches and our society.

About this title

About the Author

Ellen Sussman is the author of the novel On a Night Like This. She has two daughters and lives with her husband in Los Altos Hills, California. She, too, is a bad girl.

Reviews

In 26 hit-or-miss essays, women writers provide confessions ranging from the mildly naughty (Roxana Robinson forging a parental permission slip during high school) to the grimly personal (Jennifer Gilmore suffering from acute bulimia). Few of these writers cop to behavior that is genuinely, inexcusably bad (none are currently languishing in prison), but many of these stories prove intriguing and occasionally brave, nonetheless. Joyce Maynard explains her reasons for penning a memoir about her long-ago love affair with J.D. Salinger (she calls him "Jerry"), and Laura Lipmann's hilarious tale of employee abuse recounts the months of spite-fueled work at a newspaper that produced some of her best articles. Pam Houston writes movingly of the complicated relationship she shared with her late father, and Kaui Hart Hemmings's sharp "Author Questionnaire" pokes fun at the self-involved world of San Francisco moms. Though the themes are familiar (Susan Casey's Christmastime blues especially so), and some essays could have used more fine-tuning (Tobin Levy's point gets lost among an entertaining catalog of former lovers), this is a lively assortment with enough variety to hook a wide range of readers.
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Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393064638
• ISBN 13: 9780393064636
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Sussman Ellen