Synopses & Reviews
When it comes to sex, what do women want? In this eye-opening and courageous collection, Erica Jong reveals that every woman has her own answer.
Susan Cheever talks about the "excruciating hazards of casual sex," while Gail Collins recounts her Catholic upbringing in Cincinnati and the nuns who passionately forbade her from having "carnal relations." In "Everything Must Go," Jennifer Weiner explores how, in love, the body can play just as big a role as the heart. The octogenarians in Karen Abbott's sharp-eyed piece possess a passion that could give Betty White a run for her money. Molly Jong-Fast reflects on her unconventional upbringing and why a whole generation of young women have rejected "free love" in favor of Bugaboo strollers and Mommy-and-me yoga.
Sex, it turns out, can be as fleeting, heavy, mundane, and intense as the rest of life. Indeed, Jong states in her powerful introduction "the truth is—sex is life."
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"[A] fierce, fearless collection." More Magazine
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“You can take these women seriously, laugh, squirm, and put hand over mouth at their weird, exciting, uncomfortable, joyous tales of ardor, while still admiring the agility of their prose.” Chicago Sun-Times
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“Jong cast a broad net to bring together women writing about sex. The resulting anthology attests the wide range of female sexual experience.” Publishers Weekly
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“These pieces honestly and thoughtfully explore sex and its role in our society from a womans perspective, from its place in youth to the golden years....with Sugar in My Bowl Jong has curated a consistently eye-opening and thoroughly readable volume.” The Frisky
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“The enticing, thoughtful Sugar in My Bowl proves to be a powerful exploration of womens relationship to sex.” LargeHearted Boy Blog
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“The women of this collection make the case that good sex is never exclusively about the act, but also about how you approach it.” More Magazine
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“This book is a Thanksgiving dinner in which each story is a dish more scrumptious, more touchingly homemade than the last. All are so very different, but together they comprise a joyous feast: [an] examination-cum-celebration of female sex and sexuality. A must-read.” Entertainment Realm
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“Jong has crafted candid accounts of love and passion from renowned female writers into a sensual and sensitive read.” Forbes
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“Sugar in My Bowl is proof positive that women can write seriously about sex and live to tell. It represents a remarkable smorgasbord of experience and perspective, and theres a dish here for everyone.” Booklist
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“Jong partners with 28 collaborators to create this fierce and refreshingly frank collection of personal essays, short fiction and cartoons celebrating female desire…A smart, scrumptiously sexy romp of a read.” The Daily
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“A refreshing and new contribution to literature about womens sex lives.” Library Journal
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"The passion, tragedy, and hope--offered by courageous women who express raw feelings that society tends to silence--will resonate." Library Journal
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“[Sugar in My Bowl] runs the gamut from pornographic and hilarious to ironic and poignant. The result is a fun, quick, beach read, requiring as much or as little intellectual energy as the reader chooses to invest.” Interview
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“Reading Sugar in My Bowl offers a rare opportunity to peer in on a breadth of intimate sexual experiences, a wide variety of motivations, and problems and desires you never knew existed-as well as the little thrill of stumbling upon a story that sounds like your own.” NPR
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“The Vagina Monologue‘s Eve Ensler, New York Times columnist Gail Collins, and Jongs own daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, all opened up about bumpin uglies for this scintillating book we couldnt put down. Sugar In My Bowl may not be better than the big O, but it sure comes close.” Shelf Awareness
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“Abundant with affairs, marriages, motherhood and our sexual sense of mortality it is a thoughtful read, a perfect aperitif on a summer evening. The stories penetrate a secret space in our brains we so often neglect: our sense of sexuality.” Slate Double XX
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“In this no-holds-barred collection of essays by ‘real women about ‘real sex, Jong has assembled an eclectic group of authors. [Sugar in My Bowl] is at its most profound when truth illuminates sex as a force in which these women found empowerment.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“The passion, tragedy, and hopeoffered by courageous women who express raw feelings that society tends to silencewill resonate.” Gender Across Borders
Synopsis
Poet, novelist, and essayist, the legendary Erica Jong—whose novel Fear of Flying opened eyes and broke down walls—offers us a provocative collection of essays about sex from some of the most respected female authors writing today. “Real Women Write about Real Sex” in Sugar in My Bowl, as such marquee names as Gail Collins, Eve Ensler, Daphne Merken, Anne Roiphe, Liz Smith, Naomi Wolf, and Jennifer Weiner, to name but a few, join together to speak openly about female desire—what provokes it and what satisfies it. In the free, unfettered spirit of The Bitch in the House, Sugar in My Bowl explores the bedroom lives of women with daring, wit, intelligence, and candor.
About the Author
Erica Jong is the author of eight novels including Fear of Flying; Fanny, Being the True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones; Shylock's Daughter; Inventing Memory, a Novel of Mothers and Daughters; and Sappho's Leap. Several of her novels have been worldwide bestsellers. Her other books include the nonfiction works Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir; The Devil at Large, a study of Henry Miller; Witches; and What Do Women Want; and six volumes of poetry.