Lipshtick
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Get comfy, pull up a pan of blondies, and settle in for some girlfriend talk. Get the lowdown on who's low and how's down, whose long-standing but unspoken conflict with her mother is contributing to her sexual repression, and whose boyfriend named his penis. A hysterical send-up of everyday life and love with lots of heart, Lipshtick is a quick fix, a good schmooze, a heartfelt sob or two.
It will take you on a trip through things universal to all pairs of X chromosomes worth their salt: for coping with social dances in junior high (where the sexes meet like a hormonal high noon) to the joys of plucking out your chin hair like evil weeds; from the natural order of a girl's fantasies (like sweets that don't make you fat, spending that doesn't break the bank, a beautiful nap in the middle of a long day) to why flings with bad boys are the ultimate in dating pleasure (finding the right boy to lust after is a lifelong struggle--eventually you grow to be picky about who rejects you); from getting married (His best quality? He was like family. His worst quality? He was like family.) to the sad state of postnatal breasts. Gwen Macsai cover it all--with a shtick twist. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll thank God you're not her. No situation unaccounted for, no mole left unexamined, Macsai captures a woman's life from her first leg-shave to her last dose of hormone replacement therapy.
When you finish Lipshtick you'll have added another great girlfriend to your already glittering array. And in this world you can't have enough girlfriends or laughter.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The title and subtitle say it all, as NPR essayist Macsai attempts in her first book to trace the milestones of female life, from junior high crushes to marriage and motherhood, in this collection of closely connected essays. Purportedly a celebration of "girlfriends"--odd as the moniker seems when applied to a mother of two, as the author is--the "girls" practically disappear as Macsai moves on to describe her forays into dating and marriage. Heterosexual in outlook, the sections on friendship cover familiar territory (girlfriends are practically perfect--they dish about men and clothes and eat ice cream with you, but you can't sleep with them). Macsai includes a supposedly "liberating" dating game you can play with your friends: assign a point value for various types of dates (lunch, dinner, meeting his parents, etc.) and see who wins. When the author meets her future husband, the reader is unprepared for what follows--a hackneyed account of the various ways her husband annoys her, summed up with the (unattributed) Elvis paraphrase: "I've never been quite sure which came first, the hotheaded woman or the oblivious man." Macsai's discussion of the age-old problem of how to balance children and the rest of life merely reinforces hidebound gender roles. Even worse, the humor of her outdated shtick often falls flat and her attempts to portray herself as hip ("I am a rhythm machine") don't ring true. This is The Rules couched in the language of talk-show, "you go, girl" feminism, unlikely to instruct or amuse.
