Not Tonight, Honey

April 18, 2005
Reinhardt slips Zoloft into her husband's tea for several weeks to cure him of an incessant need to clean and an overactive libido. She is matron of honor at her best friend's wedding—and ends up taking the minister's place when his colostomy bag malfunctions. She gives an interview while on bed rest due to irritable uterus syndrome and later winds up reading a headline on her "grumpy vagina." Obviously, syndicated newspaper columnist Reinhardt is the kind of woman who gets into endless scrapes, but she's as amused by them as readers are, and her book will appeal to lovers of the Sweet Potato Queens and Fanny Flagg. But there's another side to Reinhardt. Some of the essays in this collection are lyrical even as they pay tribute to old favorites: Southern women, pregnancy and motherhood. Most of all, the author knows that some days we, like her, come into work just to see what the "weirdos" are up to, and that we like the same thing in our nonfiction. And while her topics are sometimes predictable and her humor is sometimes crass, her heart is always in the right place, and her prose is often fresh and fun. Agent, Ethan Ellenberg.

April 1, 2005
Newspaper columnist Reinhardt has put together a collection of anecdotes and tales that ranges from side splitting to achingly poignant. She's like a modern-day, southern-fried Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry, and her tales of the ordinary will resonate with women everywhere. Meet her husband, Tidy Stu, who won't let her have bed skirts or load the dishwasher; her grandmother, who insists she doesn't smoke as she hides the lit evidence in her apron pockets; and her mother, a true southern lady and "double virgin." Laugh as Susan, determined to get her children a dog despite Tidy Stu's objections, purchases a nursing dachshund in a parking lot; hold back the tears as her mother comforts her through a miscarriage and as she leaves her son on his first day of school. Readers of all stripes will find themselves relating to Susan and thoroughly enjoying these, by turns, raunchy and tear-inducing real-life stories.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)