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The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation
by Elizabeth Berg
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Synopses & Reviews Exhilarating short stories of women breaking free from convention.
Every now and then, right in the middle of an ordinary day, a woman rebels, kicks up her heels, and commits a small act of liberation.
What would you do, if you were going to break out and away? Go AWOL from Weight Watchers and spend an entire day eating every single thing you want-and then some? Start a dating service for people over fifty to reclaim the razzle-dazzle in your life — or your marriage? Seek comfort in the face of aging, look for love in the midst of loss, find friendship in the most surprising of places?
Imagine that the people in these wonderful stories — who do all of these things and more — are asking you: What would you do, if nobody was looking? Review: "In this collection of mostly uplifting stories, Berg ( Dream When You're Feeling Blue) explores the everyday challenges that women face. Whether teenaged or octogenarian, Berg's heroines brave the emotional landmines underlying domestic scenes (from holiday dinner parties to visiting family), navigate the slippery slope of constant dieting and address the process of aging. The title story features an unnamed, insouciant narrator who flees from a Weight Watchers meeting and allows herself to indulge her most fattening food cravings. In 'Full Count,' an introspective army brat begins to decipher what she looks like to others. The wistful and nostalgic 'Rain' features a woman reminiscing about a good friend who dropped his successful corporate life to live closer to nature. Berg's men are surprisingly supportive and well behaved; it is often the women in these stories who manipulate and mistreat their partners. The protagonist of 'Truth or Dare,' for example, struggles to accept that her ex-husband moved on after she left him. Berg has a knack for sentimental but authentic stories about women who find affirmation in true-to-life situations, and if her endings are slightly predictable, it's in a good way, like comfort food that never disappoints." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review: "If these short stories were dresses, and if you complimented Elizabeth Berg on them, you get the feeling she'd answer, 'Oh, this old thing? I've had it for ages!' Or, 'I picked it up for just $5 at Ross. Imagine!' When, in fact, she would have picked out the finest material, designed her own pattern and stitched every seam by hand. Berg seems to be modesty itself, but she's using ... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) her prodigious skill to mess with your unsuspecting mind. She's writing women's stories about women's condition in terms so simple they could easily turn up in the Ladies' Home Journal next to that monthly column that asks, 'Can this marriage be saved?,' then takes a world-class awful marriage and jiggers with it until both parties can be cajoled into soldiering on, saving their marriage but wasting the rest of their lives. The message in that column, as in so much women's magazine fiction and in these stories by Berg, is that women's lot is not a happy one! Nevertheless, we, as women, must learn to chew on that condition, gag down our own self-loathing and swallow life as it's shoveled into us. Berg examines women's lot at many different ages and stages of life. In 'How to Make an Apple Pie,' the oldest woman here, 87, breathlessly and scatterbrainedly writes down her legendary recipe for that exemplary pastry for a neighbor's child — grown now. You have to wear an apron for the best results, and being barefoot is nice, and it's good to have big-band music blaring through the kitchen. And don't be afraid of that sullen crust! In 'Full Count,' a 12-year-old is brought low by yet another pie, this one made of mince. Janey, an Army brat, drives from Texas to North Dakota with her parents — to reunite with her extended family, particularly her grandfather and a flock of intriguing male cousins. She requests one of her mom's wonderful mince pies to take on the trip and is rewarded with ambivalent parental glances. Janey is smart — smarter than the rest of the characters in this story — but she is deluded. She lives in a world of fastidiousness and beauty; she prefers to air-dry herself after a bath, for instance, so that her towel may remain 'pristine.' She is an artist and quite proud of her sketches. She looks forward to seeing her cousins, only to find out that she'll be defined by just one thing. In the two years since she last saw them, she's become fat and worthy of their contempt. Food is this collection's central metaphor, and getting fat is what happens when Janey asks 'for pie, for French fries, for more.' And why can't women have more? Well, we can, in theory. In the past century, women have gotten the vote and the right to work just as hard as men. But when women get more, men very often don't like it. They don't like it, that's all. In 'The Party,' a group of women, strangers to each other, strike up a conversation — a rather bawdy one — and start to giggle and have fun. It's unacceptable to one of the husbands, who comes up and puts a quick stop to it. Later, the narrator of the story thinks, in italics: 'Here is how I feel about men: I am angry at them for the way they sling their advantage about — interrupting, taking over, forcing endings, pretending to not understand what equality between the sexes necessitates, then ensuring that they are always and forever the ones who say when. But I feel sorry for them, too.' So men, in general, are seen here as killjoys and bores, but these are far from being feminist tales. The women here suck it up, hunker down, live their women's magazine lives. And their men, taken case by case, aren't all that bad. They're imprisoned by life, too. The women often find themselves married to their second choices, but when that first choice turns up again, he doesn't seem all that great either. Children grow up to be ungrateful (in 'Over the Hill and Into the Woods' a grandmother in her 70s hides upstairs from her grown children, who have callously made light of her lifetime of service to them), but their time will come; they, too, will live to be discounted and humiliated. There's some consolation in Berg's worldview: Men die off early or leave to find younger wives. Women in middle age may come upon a time to have fun, cook gourmet meals, discover new friends, measure the true meaning of their lives. In 'Truth or Dare,' the most ambitious story here, a group of newly single women does just that. Is this a whiny book? Haven't we put all that women's magazine groaning behind us? I think the answer to both questions is no. A striving woman still runs a strong risk of being censured and despised. And the vast majority of women have always known that it's counterproductive to whine. Giggling, cooking, eating, drinking, acting goofy to the point of imbecility, these are still probably women's best weapons in the Battle of the Sexes, a game that was rigged going in, as these very skillful and unpretentious stories show." Reviewed by Carolyn See, who can be reached at www.carolynsee.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)Review: "Berg's writing is so gentle, her people so real, that even these sad stories generate warmth. Tales that highlight the bright sparks in everyday experience." Kirkus Reviews Synopsis: About the Author Elizabeth Berg is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including Dream When You're Feeling Blue, We Are All Welcome Here, The Year of Pleasures, The Art of Mending, Say When, True to Form, Never Change and Open House, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 2000. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, and Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for the ABBY Award in 1996. The winner of the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, Berg is also the author of a nonfiction work, Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True She lives in Chicago. To schedule a speaking engagement, please contact American Program Bureau at www.apbspeakers.com
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9781400065097
- Subtitle:
- And Other Small Acts of Liberation
- Author:
- Berg, Elizabeth
- Publisher:
- Random House
- Subject:
- Women
- Subject:
- United states
- Subject:
- Contemporary Women
- Subject:
- Women -- United States.
- Subject:
- United States Social life and customs.
- Publication Date:
- April 2008
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 242
- Dimensions:
- 9.28x5.80x.90 in. .85 lbs.
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