Love and Trouble

March 27, 2017
In this edgy, frank, and at times outright hilarious tale of lost youth and midlife angst, Dederer (Poser), a wife and mother of two who lives on an idyllic island a ferry ride away from Seattle, describes finding herself in a funk at age 44 in 2011. Dederer is “inexplicably sad” (as are many of her middle-aged friends); the high point of her day is nibbling pomegranates (while cloaked in a stained gray hoodie) and drinking bourbon. She wonders what happened to the feisty, adventuresome, and sexually promiscuous young woman she once was. Inspired, in part, by an unexpected kiss from an older writer, Dederer journeys into her past, lining up 20 diaries ranging from age eight (a 1975 Peanuts diary) to the night before her wedding. Though she deems her diaries “a pageant of stupidity” and her former self a “clueless bitch,” she longs for the heightened sense of time, place, and sexual excitement she finds in their pages. The memoir takes readers through Dederer’s childhood in suburban Laurelhurst (her mother and father divorced when she was five and her mom took up with a younger hippie), her teen obsession with boys, and her days at Oberlin College, where she felt “trapped and anxious.” The author briefly lived in Australia before returning to Seattle and eventually choosing a life of “constraint.” This candid memoir will resonate with women (and quite possibly men) of all ages, but particularly those in midlife. Dederer brings a startling intimacy and immediacy to her version of growing up female in America.

Starred review from March 1, 2017
A fierce new memoir from the essayist and longtime New York Times contributor.In her debut, Poser (2011), Dederer trained her keen eye and penchant for dry self-deprecation on yoga and motherhood. Here, the author turns to other topics, primarily sex and aging. It seems she had no choice. Ensconced in her apparently perfect life--comfortable house, kind husband, loving kids, career success and recognition--Dederer found herself intermittently and uncomfortably aware of her "chaotic past," of the "disastrous pirate slut of a girl" who was "breathing down my neck." One day when she was 44, for reasons not entirely clear, though maybe as simple as the encroachment of middle age or the scent of nostalgia in the air, the latent hungers and preoccupations of her sexually active youth came rushing back, "as if a switch is flipped," and refused to disappear. A disruptive, unbidden kiss from a man who was not her husband widened the crevice in the wall between her libidinous past and relatively contained, conventional present. Informed by her own diaries--20 of them recovered from boxes scattered throughout the basement--the author dedicated herself to considering the "horrible girl" she once was, examining her from a variety of angles to face her head-on and bravely mulling disquieting questions of identity and purpose. With candor and humor, Dederer dives deeply into her sexual history, which began with an unwelcome encounter at age 13, continued through her teenage explorations based around Seattle's University Avenue in the early 1980s, and into her unhappy time at Oberlin and beyond. Along the way, she contemplates power and victimhood and the battle, or balance, between freedom and safety. Dederer is unstintingly honest and unafraid as she excavates her motivations and reservations, her fantasies, and the implications of the choices she has made - and those she has yet to make. Insightful, provocative, and fearlessly frank, Dederer seduces readers with her warmth, wit, and wisdom.

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Starred review from April 15, 2017

What and why women want persist as questions that intrigue or nag, depending on who's asking. Here, three memoirists write about what they want and how they figured out how to get it.

Beset by tearful miseries and strong yearnings at age 44, journalist and critic Dederer (Poser) set out to determine what was happening to her--and why. In search of the reason for her erotic jump-start, she digs out her youthful diaries and revisits the Seattle of her sexy, "pirate girl" teenage years as well as the Oberlin of her angst-ridden college years and several other (literal and figurative) hot spots from her past. In unvarnished prose, she unravels the threads holding together the domesticated wife-mother-writer-persona she had assembled and examines the woman, formerly wild child, underneath. Her elegantly structured, expansive, and unapologetic account captures the sense of one woman's self about as honestly as it is possible to do on a page.

Grey, a pseudonymous British columnist for the Guardian, documents her experiment in online dating after her unexpected, unpleasant, and unwanted midlife divorce. Determined to achieve coupledom again via the matchmaking powers of online dating, she endures years of inaccurate profiles, deceptive photography, misleading emails, disappointing first dates, awkward sex, and requests of an extremely personal nature involving Skype. Grey's report of her odyssey through the world of men thought to be appropriate for her is hilarious and detailed. She kisses her way through a whole house full of frogs in search of a prince and, luckily for her readers, keeps notes on the process. Woven throughout the chronology, however, are strands of dating fatigue and skepticism about the process as a whole. After all, she reasons, would a dating website have suggested her polar-opposite type parents to each other?

Nevins, a veteran documentary producer and president of HBO Documentary Films, presents a series of essays, poems, and brief sketches intended to capture her more than 50 years working in the media industry. The 77-year-old author is coy about whether or not she is the featured character in the pieces yet promises that all of the stories she tells are true, even if she is hiding behind other names. She discusses topics as disparate as how a "Cosmo girl" style evolved into something less dependent upon the trading of sexual favors in the workplace, to the guilt heaped upon working mothers by others (including other women, and in one comic case, a hamster). Her tone is conversational and her powers of observation sharp, whether discussing the terrors of waiting for a mammogram or skewering a philandering male.VERDICT Grey's and Nevins's titles will appeal to anyone in similar circumstances, but Dederer's memoir speaks eloquently to questions all women have.--Thérèse Purcell Nielsen, Huntington P.L., NY

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2017
In her frank and frankly hilarious new memoir, Dederer (Poser, 2011) explores the female midlife crisis in all its glorious, tear-streaked, and hormone-crazed inconvenience. Lost somewhere between her teenage sexual awakening, college, early married life, and what should have been a calming-down, a leveling out, Dederer finds herself in an awkward place: frisky at 44. Except, she writes, as Morrisey says, that joke wasn't funny anymore. Memoirs are often a relatable trip down memory lane, but this book offers an edgier look at marriage, sexuality, intimacy, feminism, and the desires of women everywhere from the perspective of a mother who is still raising a teenage daughter. Using her adolescent journals, imagined correspondence to Roman Polanski, and her own recollections, Dederer tells stories of crying with friends and friends crying with her, seducing her husband of 15 years, and out-of-control encounters with strangers in alleys. Dederer's razor-sharp writing conjures fits of laughter and tears in equal measure. This is an excellent suggestion for fans of Lena Dunham and Brittany Gibbons.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)