Synopses & Reviews
Botox, bulimia, breast implants: Eve Ensler, author of the international sensation
The Vagina Monologues, is back, this time to rock our view of what it means to have a “good body.” “In the 1950s,” Eve writes, girls were “pretty, perky. They had a blond Clairol wave in their hair. They wore girdles and waist-pinchers. . . . In recent years good girls join the army. They climb the corporate ladder. They go to the gym. . . . They wear painful pointy shoes. They dont eat too much. They . . . dont eat at all. They stay perfect. They stay thin. I could never be good.”
The Good Body starts with Eves tortured relationship with her own “post-forties” stomach and her skirmishes with everything from Ab Rollers to fad diets and fascistic trainers in an attempt get the “flabby badness” out. As Eve hungrily seeks self-acceptance, she is joined by the voices of women from L.A. to Kabul, whose obsessions are also laid bare: A young Latina candidly critiques her humiliating “spread,” a stubborn layer of fat that she calls “a second pair of thighs.” The wife of a plastic surgeon recounts being systematically reconstructed-inch by inch-by her “perfectionist” husband. An aging magazine executive, still haunted by her mothers long-ago criticism, describes her desperate pursuit of youth as she relentlessly does sit-ups.
Along the way, Eve also introduces us to women who have found a hard-won peace with their bodies: an African mother who celebrates each individual body as signs of natures diversity; an Indian woman who transcends “treadmill mania” and delights in her plump cheeks and curves; and a veiled Afghani woman who is willing to risk imprisonment for a taste of ice cream. These are just a few of the inspiring stories woven through Eves global journey from obsession to enlightenment. Ultimately, these monologues become a personal wake-up call from Eve to love the “good bodies” we inhabit.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
EVE ENSLER is an internationally acclaimed playwright whose many works for the stage include
Floating Rhonda and the Glue Man,
Lemonade, Necessary Targets, and
The Vagina Monologues, for which she received an Obie Award. Performances of
The Vagina Monologues, sponsored by V-Day (
www.vday.org), have raised $25 million to stop violence against abused women and girls around the world. She lives in New York City.
From the Hardcover edition.