The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood and Marriage

My friends and I moaned about how tired we were. During dips in our conversation, I found myself looking at the teenage couple seated at a table, their chairs side by side. They kissed. My friend asked me about my marriage. "Are you guys having sex?" she asked bluntly... I wanted to laugh.

— Jill Bialosky

Women today have more choices than at any time in history, yet many smart, ambitious, contemporary women are finding themselves angry, dissatisfied, stressed out. Why are they dissatisfied? And what do they really want? These questions form the premise of this passionate, provocative, funny, searingly honest collection of original essays in which twenty-six women writers invite readers into their lives, minds, and bedrooms to talk about the choices they've made, what's working, and what's not.

Here are a few things people have said about me at the office: "You're unflappable." "Are you ever in a bad mood?" Here are things people — okay, the members of my family — have said about me at home: "Mommy is always grumpy." "Why are you so tense?" "You're too mean to live in this house and I want you to go back to work for the rest of your life!"

— Kristin van Ogtrop

With wit and humor, in prose as poetic and powerful as it is blunt and dead-on, these intriguing women — ranging in age from twenty-four to sixty-five, single and childless or married with children or four times divorced — offer details of their lives that they've never publicly revealed.

I didn't want to be a bad mother I wanted to be my mother-safe, protective, rational, calm — without giving up all my anger, because my anger fueled me.

— Elissa Schappell

The result is an intimate sharing of experience that will move, amuse, and enlighten. This is the sound of the collective voice of successful women today, in all their anger, grace, and glory.