Publication
Bloomsbury, c2021.
Status
Available
Description
"The uncannily relevant, deliciously clear-eyed collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning "American literary treasure" (Boston Globe), ripe for rediscovery--with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout. From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer--now 90 years old and at the top of her game--has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who "raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height." (Washington Post) These collected short stories--most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and The Saturday Evening Post in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present--are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today. In the title story, a bystander tries to soothe a woman who seems to have cracked under the pressures of motherhood. And in several linked stories throughout, the relationship between the narrator and her husband unfolds in telling and often hilarious vignettes. Of their time and yet timeless, Wolitzer's stories zero in on the domestic sphere and ordinary life with wit, candor, grace, and an acutely observant eye. Brilliantly capturing the tensions and contradictions of daily life, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is full of heart and insight, providing a lens into a world that was often unseen at the time, and often overlooked now--reintroducing a beloved writer to be embraced by a whole new generation of readers"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member lisapeet
Lean, but not mean in the least—rather the stories, which date from 1966 to 2020, are all muscle and heart, domestic but not in the least fussy. I love Wolitzer's understanding of how compassion and humor fit seamlessly together.
LibraryThing member nancyadair
How have I gotten through life without having heard of Hilma Wolitzer? The stories in Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket are so delicious! I laughed even when I guiltily recognized the truthful honesty behind these stories which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and
When I found the title story online, shared by The Saturday Evening Post on their website and first published in the magazine in 1966, I knew I had to read more. A woman has a nervous breakdown in the grocery store, her son clinging to her skirts, her purse empty, while the pregnant narrator tries to help her. “You can’t mother the whole world,” her husband consoles his sorrowing wife. Oh, how many times have we seen a crisis and felt powerless? But where better to lose it than food shopping? Woman carry so much, especially in 1966, the family needing to be feed and the house cleaned and the dog walked and so on and so on. It’s enough to crush any woman’s spirit. The relentless need and the never ending futility of it all.
The story of Paulette and Howard is told through the stories: their shotgun wedding, the struggles of marriage, depression and anxiety, in-laws and kids, and finally, old age in the pandemic and the losses it inflicts.
I found myself glancing over to see if Howard was still alive, holding my breath while I watched for the shallow rise and fall of his, the way I had once watched for a promising rise in the bedclothes.
The last story, The Great Escape, opens with Paulie watching Howard sleeping, reminiscing of the days when she would wake him up for a quickie before the kids woke up. Now, she checks to see if he is still breathing. It is hilarious and heartbreaking all at once.
She captures the routine of old age, their days reduced to the same endless routine, “as if it would all go one forever in that exquisitely boring and beautiful way.”
The kids order them to stock up on toilet paper and hand sanitizer and to fill the freezer, the book club switched to Zoom meetings (as did the bar mitzvah), hair cuts are skipped, and masks and gloves became a part of their wardrobe.
It is like the story of my 2020 life, down to the Zoomed bar mitzvah attendance!
In the Foreword by Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge, My Name is Lucy Barton), she writes that Wolitzer “is largehearted in her work, judging no none.” And I loved that about these stories. Like Strout’s characters, Wolitzer writes about ordinary people, with great honesty and sympathy and insight. I loved these women and I loved these stories. Wolitzer’s brilliant writing is not to be missed.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
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literary magazines in the 1960s and 1970s.When I found the title story online, shared by The Saturday Evening Post on their website and first published in the magazine in 1966, I knew I had to read more. A woman has a nervous breakdown in the grocery store, her son clinging to her skirts, her purse empty, while the pregnant narrator tries to help her. “You can’t mother the whole world,” her husband consoles his sorrowing wife. Oh, how many times have we seen a crisis and felt powerless? But where better to lose it than food shopping? Woman carry so much, especially in 1966, the family needing to be feed and the house cleaned and the dog walked and so on and so on. It’s enough to crush any woman’s spirit. The relentless need and the never ending futility of it all.
The story of Paulette and Howard is told through the stories: their shotgun wedding, the struggles of marriage, depression and anxiety, in-laws and kids, and finally, old age in the pandemic and the losses it inflicts.
I found myself glancing over to see if Howard was still alive, holding my breath while I watched for the shallow rise and fall of his, the way I had once watched for a promising rise in the bedclothes.
The last story, The Great Escape, opens with Paulie watching Howard sleeping, reminiscing of the days when she would wake him up for a quickie before the kids woke up. Now, she checks to see if he is still breathing. It is hilarious and heartbreaking all at once.
She captures the routine of old age, their days reduced to the same endless routine, “as if it would all go one forever in that exquisitely boring and beautiful way.”
The kids order them to stock up on toilet paper and hand sanitizer and to fill the freezer, the book club switched to Zoom meetings (as did the bar mitzvah), hair cuts are skipped, and masks and gloves became a part of their wardrobe.
It is like the story of my 2020 life, down to the Zoomed bar mitzvah attendance!
In the Foreword by Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge, My Name is Lucy Barton), she writes that Wolitzer “is largehearted in her work, judging no none.” And I loved that about these stories. Like Strout’s characters, Wolitzer writes about ordinary people, with great honesty and sympathy and insight. I loved these women and I loved these stories. Wolitzer’s brilliant writing is not to be missed.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TimBazzett
Before I forget to say it, I LOVED THIS BOOK! That out of the way, Why? Well, it's hard to say, except maybe, well, the characters here are just so damn HUman, you know? I was gonna say fallible, but that's the wrong word for Paulie and Howard, the recurring couple in these mostly linked stories.
"'So that's it,' Howard said, and we were engaged."
The story gets even funnier from there, and I don't wanna spoil it. But remember the labor-delivery-room scene from that movie, "Angie" with Geena Davis? Kinda like that, only funnier. But POIGNant too, ya know?
There are a few stories here that are not about Paulie and Howard. The title story may be one, as the narrator and her husband are unnamed, but they COULDA been P and H, very easily. And there's one, "Bodies," about a woman whose husband has been arrested for exposing himself. Definitely NOT Howard. All of these stories are very good, no question, but it was Paulie's voice that captured me in these stories, many of them written forty or more years ago. Except the last one, "The Great Escape," written just last year. Paulie and Howard are near ninety now, and it's the year of Covid. That one just flat out broke my old heart. ...
Okay I'm back. I had to go walk the younger dog, and then help my wife give the older dog a much-needed haircut. And then I had to vacuum - all that dog hair. And then let both dogs out to piddle, and then back in for a cookie, and ... All that everyday human kinda stuff. And this "review" has begun to feel more like a letter, so what the hell.
Dear Hilma - Yes, I loved TODAY A WOMAN WENT MAD IN THE SUPERMARKET - and I mean ALL of the stories, but especially the Paulie ones. A book of linked short stories like this immediately reminded me of Elizabeth Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE, another book I loved, and maybe it's no coincidence that Strout wrote the Foreword that pulls all these old stories of yours together. And by the way, it's certainly no mean feat that the stories written in the 60s and 70s fit together so seamlessly - and are still so RELevant - with that final one, written just last year, which pulls us so painfully into the present and all the horrors and personal tragedies of the Covid pandemic. But back to Elizabeth. While I loved her stories about Olive and Henry, and came to appreciate Olive and her eccentricities, her couple was nowhere near as lovable as yours, Hilma. Human, yes. But lovable? Well, maybe, but in an entirely different category from Paulie and Howard. The OLIVE stories won Strout the Pulitzer, and well deserved too. In fact, I have read all of her books, and, not too long ago, I also appreciated the Introduction she wrote for a collection by the late Frederick Busch (yet ANOTHER writer I have admired and read for more than 30 years).
Okay. All these wonderful writers who have enriched my life for so long - they are all connected somehow in my old grey head. I just finished reading Adam Begley's marvelous biography of John Updike, a guy whose work I've read for over fifty years. And Begley's dad is Louis Begley, who wrote those terrific SCHMIDT books. So many books and writers I've read and want to read ... Updike and Begley and Busch, oh my! And Strout. And you too, Hilma. I did so love your novels AN AVAILABLE MAN and THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER. And now this lovely collection of stories, with the irrepressible Paulie. I loved her voice and her bawdy sense of humor. I wish she had a whole novel of her own. But if her stories here are all I get, well okay. Thank you so much for giving us Paulie, Hilma. I wish we could sit down over coffee and talk about books and writers. And about being human, and mortal.
I'll end where I started. I loved your book, Hilma. My very highest recommendation.
Sincerely,
Tim Bazzett
(author of BOOKLOVER, A memoir)
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Fallible brings up images of the Pope, and all that Catholic doctrine crap I was force-fed for the first eighteen years of my life. Nope. Human is better. Especially in "Photographs," the story that introduces us to them, and begins with the line, "We were married in those dark ages before legalized abortion." That got my attention. And then Paulie, our narrator and guide in the story of this long and loving marriage (Were there fights and disagreements? Of course there were. Human! Remember?) goes on to tell us more about Howard and sex and "the glorious territory we had discovered together in such blind and blundering exploration." Ah yes, and weren't we all once such blundering explorers? But sex has a price, and Paulie soon finds herself "in trouble." A touchingly serious - and kinda funny - conversation between the two youthful explorers about their problem ensues, culminating in - "'So that's it,' Howard said, and we were engaged."
The story gets even funnier from there, and I don't wanna spoil it. But remember the labor-delivery-room scene from that movie, "Angie" with Geena Davis? Kinda like that, only funnier. But POIGNant too, ya know?
There are a few stories here that are not about Paulie and Howard. The title story may be one, as the narrator and her husband are unnamed, but they COULDA been P and H, very easily. And there's one, "Bodies," about a woman whose husband has been arrested for exposing himself. Definitely NOT Howard. All of these stories are very good, no question, but it was Paulie's voice that captured me in these stories, many of them written forty or more years ago. Except the last one, "The Great Escape," written just last year. Paulie and Howard are near ninety now, and it's the year of Covid. That one just flat out broke my old heart. ...
Okay I'm back. I had to go walk the younger dog, and then help my wife give the older dog a much-needed haircut. And then I had to vacuum - all that dog hair. And then let both dogs out to piddle, and then back in for a cookie, and ... All that everyday human kinda stuff. And this "review" has begun to feel more like a letter, so what the hell.
Dear Hilma - Yes, I loved TODAY A WOMAN WENT MAD IN THE SUPERMARKET - and I mean ALL of the stories, but especially the Paulie ones. A book of linked short stories like this immediately reminded me of Elizabeth Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE, another book I loved, and maybe it's no coincidence that Strout wrote the Foreword that pulls all these old stories of yours together. And by the way, it's certainly no mean feat that the stories written in the 60s and 70s fit together so seamlessly - and are still so RELevant - with that final one, written just last year, which pulls us so painfully into the present and all the horrors and personal tragedies of the Covid pandemic. But back to Elizabeth. While I loved her stories about Olive and Henry, and came to appreciate Olive and her eccentricities, her couple was nowhere near as lovable as yours, Hilma. Human, yes. But lovable? Well, maybe, but in an entirely different category from Paulie and Howard. The OLIVE stories won Strout the Pulitzer, and well deserved too. In fact, I have read all of her books, and, not too long ago, I also appreciated the Introduction she wrote for a collection by the late Frederick Busch (yet ANOTHER writer I have admired and read for more than 30 years).
Okay. All these wonderful writers who have enriched my life for so long - they are all connected somehow in my old grey head. I just finished reading Adam Begley's marvelous biography of John Updike, a guy whose work I've read for over fifty years. And Begley's dad is Louis Begley, who wrote those terrific SCHMIDT books. So many books and writers I've read and want to read ... Updike and Begley and Busch, oh my! And Strout. And you too, Hilma. I did so love your novels AN AVAILABLE MAN and THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER. And now this lovely collection of stories, with the irrepressible Paulie. I loved her voice and her bawdy sense of humor. I wish she had a whole novel of her own. But if her stories here are all I get, well okay. Thank you so much for giving us Paulie, Hilma. I wish we could sit down over coffee and talk about books and writers. And about being human, and mortal.
I'll end where I started. I loved your book, Hilma. My very highest recommendation.
Sincerely,
Tim Bazzett
(author of BOOKLOVER, A memoir)
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LibraryThing member AmyMacEvilly
Loved this collection of short stories. How have I missed this author until now?
LibraryThing member froxgirl
These stories, all originally published in the 1970s except for the closer, are true slices of domestic non-drama. There is literally no action. It's all submerged thoughts, the same ones that you are relieved do not display on everyone's forehead. Some are linked, featuring handsome husband Howard
Quote: "Howard's father died, moving Howard up one generation and canceling forever his coming attractions of life. Distinguished one minute, extinguished the next."
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and his beleaguered wife Paulie, standing in for the author, for you, and for Everywoman. Time crawls and then flies, a home is purchased, parents age and die, depression, insomnia, and adultery set in, children are born and leave, and although my description is bland, the thoughts of Paulie and others (including the one in the perfect title) are so perfectly expressed that it all seems revelatory and shining and new. Quote: "Howard's father died, moving Howard up one generation and canceling forever his coming attractions of life. Distinguished one minute, extinguished the next."
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LibraryThing member smik
The majority, but not all, of these collected short stories are related to a "loosely autobiographical couple", Paulie and Howard. I began reading them, expecting, for some reason, them to be humerous, but in reality they are not. For readers of this blog, I should point out, nor are they crime
Events capture the characters, entrap them, and then sometimes there is humour and quirkiness, as they struggle to release themselves.
These stories were written and published over a period of five decades, and in themselves reflect what was important in American society in that time.
For me the most memorable is the last, the author writing in and about the year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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fiction. They spring rather from the ordinary events of life, of things that have happened, or nearly happened to us.Events capture the characters, entrap them, and then sometimes there is humour and quirkiness, as they struggle to release themselves.
These stories were written and published over a period of five decades, and in themselves reflect what was important in American society in that time.
For me the most memorable is the last, the author writing in and about the year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SarahEBear
What a wonderful collection of short stories. I absolutely adored this book. "Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket" offers a series of short stories, mostly written in the first person, describing seemingly ordinary day-to-day incidents in women's lives. I laughed, cried, cheered.
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9781526638724