As I I was reading this, I was very much reminded of what I love about the work of Alice McDermott, Anne Tyler, or Elizabeth Strout who has written an eloquent foreward full of praise for Hilma Wolitzer. It’s the quiet ordinary lives we can relate to and empathize with even if the circumstances are not exactly our own. It’s about coping with the imperfections of our daily lives and in each other, in marriages and families and it’s filled with heart and humor. I must have been living under a rock for never having read anything by Hilma Wolitzer until now. She’s 91 years old and while most of the stories in this collection were written several decades ago, they are so relatable even now. She’s obviously still writing as the final story reflects recent events. I’m glad to have discovered her writing now.

In all honesty, I was drawn to this book because of the title, thinking in a light hearted way that any day now I could go mad in the supermarket. This title story, the first in the book, though, is hardly light hearted. It’s sad and so realistic about how overwhelming life can be for women at times caring for small children, tending to a house with a less than understanding husband and how it can break a woman. I wished I could help her. That’s how real it felt. Another that really touched me was “Waiting for Daddy”, a sad story of a young girl wanting a connection with a father she never knew. In spite of some sadness and tough times, the stories are infused with such humor.

“Photographs”, “Mrs. X”, “Sundays”, “Nights”, “Overtime”, “The Sex Maniac”, “Trophies”, and “The Great Escape”, all center on a married couple, Paulette and Howard at various times in their lives, over the years raising their children, living in an apartment building in New York City. What terrific characters, facing things that we could easily relate to or certainly understand - depression, boredom, sleeplessness, infidelity, forgiveness, love, and yes, the simple joys in life. One of my favorites was the last story, “The Great Escape”. This one brings Paulette and Howard to present day. They have aged and the Covid virus is here. Funny thinking back to last year and my own “stocking up” when their daughter tells them : “ Stock up on toilet paper and hand sanitizer, “ “Fill up your freezer.” Funny when her first Zoom meeting was a book club meeting when everyone had to be prompted to turn off the mute button. My first zoom meeting was a telemedicine visit and my Doctor had to prompt me to unmute . But then Covid is not so funny, but so very realistically portrayed. Paulette in this story talks about her favorite book “Mrs. Bridge “ and it’s sequel, “Mr. Bridge” - “ …I saw both novels as candid observation, leavened by the charity of humor and the imagination.” I could say the same thing about the writing I found here. I’ll have to read Mrs. Bridge one day as well as more by Hilma Wolitzer.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Macmillan through Edelweiss. 2021-favorites edelweiss-187 s Paromjit2,947 25.4k

Surprisingly, I have never come across the writer Hilma Wolitzer, this is a stunning collection of mostly previously published stories, with an introduction by the wonderful Elizabeth Strout. Wolitzer turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, relating the eternally timeless experiences of what it is to be human, skilfully making the reader feel as if her storytelling is personal to them. The stories here are full of warmth, humour, wit, insight, pathos, curiosity, empathy, heart and wisdom. The title story is the first one, it sets the standard high, as it tells of Mrs Shirley Lewis, with her young children holding onto to her for dear life in the supermarket, being pushed towards the edges of insanity with the unbearable burdens of being a mother and a wife to a husband who understands little, and is of no help whatsoever. It is told through the eyes of a bystander who tries to help, an empathetic woman.

Many of the stories are of Paulette and Howard, their relationship and marriage over the years, from the very beginnings and the ending with the last tale, The Great Escape, which resonates with our contemporary global ills of Covid-19 and the death and grief it brings. The couple having eased into their 90s, with forgiveness, with all the issues that arise with getting older in terms of health and disintegrating bodies, having endured the ups and downs of their marriage, including infidelity, the raising of their children, and the joys of grandchildren. In the early years they had Howard's first wife, Reenie, a hypochondriac, unable to let go of him, sleeping on their couch. There is Howard's depression, Paulie giving birth, and her insomnia. There are the difficulties of having to adjust to a life without a father, wide ranging reflections of our bodies, and the desperate desire to encounter the sex maniac on the loose at a time when love is in short supply.

Wolitzer has a keen and observant eye for the little things, the everyday, the apparently normal, and have us see it anew, with compassion and with a far greater appreciation. She covers traumatic childhoods, relationships, pregnancy, being a parent, a mother, marriage, the joys, pain, and heartbreak of living, love, loss, grief, the understandable restless wonderings of what else life could have been, and forgiveness. This superb short collection is a remarkable read, and showcases the talents of a gifted author that I am delighted to have discovered. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.literary-fiction netgalley short-stories159 s emma2,125 67.4k

I am not what anyone would refer to as "the sharpest tool in the shed."

I haven't so much as done mental math in the last four and a half years. If an article is filled with jargon or technical terms, I leave the tab open on my computer for at least a day (and then usually give up on even pretending I don't want to read it). I judge books by their covers.

And if a book has a great ending, or if the final story in a collection is the best one, it melts my brain and suddenly I can't remember anything except loving the whole thing.

Case in point: This book.

I fell in love with that title / cover combo, and was very rapidly disillusioned and out of love when confronted with some kind of outdated and repetitive stories with a simple writing style that didn't work for me.

But then, boom. The last story. A new story, about an elderly woman living with her husband of many years, navigating a pandemic, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and ultimately the loss of her husband to COVID-19. Written by an author who did and does the same.

2021 was, in my personal records, the year of Lucia Berlin (as I read everything she ever wrote in the last few months), and seeing the decades-later success of her 20th century semi-autobiographical short stories must have inspired this collection, at least in small part.

For me, Hilma Wolitzer is no Lucia Berlin. But I would have given a lot to read Berlin's take on the last few years, and this is the closest I'll get.

Bottom line: Read the first story. If it doesn't work for you, skip to the last one and pretend you read the whole thing.

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pre-review

read two books that made me sad in one day. my version of a superhero origin story

review to come / 3.5 stars

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currently-reading updates

i hope i, too, can one day be so lucky as to be the woman going mad in the supermarket

clear ur shit prompt 12: free space
follow my progress here

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tbr review

clear my plans for the day. i'm going to be staring lovingly at this cover

(thanks to the publisher for the copy)3-stars eh from-publisher-author ...more103 s Zoeytron1,036 837

I don't have kids, but I felt the mother's utter weariness as her mind left her there in the middle of the aisle at the supermarket, trapped with two toddlers hanging onto her skirts for dear life.  I won't say more about this title story, other than it hasn't left my mind since reading it, it is exceptional.

Consider the possibility that we were all dreaming before we were ever born.  Learn that love is neither reasonable nor fair.  Note the shifting balance of power between aging parents and their children.  Growing old together, which one's aches and pains are worse, which one will die first?  The final story in the collection, The Great Escape, focuses on the time when Covid was just gaining a foothold in our country.  The author misses nothing in this relevant story. 

Short stories, most of them written in the 1960's and 1970's, and all of them superb, in a slice of life sort of way.  Brilliant, in that there are bits and snippets in each story with which most of us will be able to identify.  Insightful, with an occasional bit of humor, just enough so you don't go mad. public-library82 s Debbie479 3,557

Pogo-stick time!

Woo-eee!! Yep, I’m up here on my dear old pogo-stick, bouncing happily on the way to my all-time favorites list, where I’m going to throw this baby on top! This collection of short stories is brilliant. It’s a book where every sentence tickles my head, heart, and soul with a ding, buzz, bang. The moments are funny or poignant or both. Relationships rule in these tales, and although the characters lead ordinary lives, they are extraordinarily interesting. That’s the sign of a writer supreme, one whom I want to follow around a crazed groupie. The stories remind me of those by Elizabeth Strout, one of my favorite writers. Oh, and how about this? Strout wrote the gushing Foreword!

What made me pick this book up, of course, was the title. Who doesn’t want to find out about the woman who went mad in the supermarket? Because face it, a lot of women have come close to a public meltdown, or have fantasized having one, or have even gone cuckoo the character in this story (ha, Xanax was not yet available). What better place for this to happen than in a supermarket, where drama can run high in small, crowded aisles? “Oh, I lost it in the pasta-sauce aisle,” one frazzled Frannie with kids in tow might confess.

Many of us are drawn to stories that we can relate to. Strout in the Foreword helps us understand how a good writer, Wolitzer, accomplishes the tricky task of making stories work, specifically this madness-in-a-supermarket story. The writer doesn’t tell us a lot about the woman who goes mad, but we add our own experiences and thus make it ours. That’s the deal with all the stories—emotions ooze out of the cracks; they’re subtle, but powerful, and then they’re inserted into our own psychology. Voila. A story we’ll remember.

Anyway, this title story delivers, bigtime. Turns out it was Wolitzer’s first published work—and we’re talking the 1960s! In fact, all but the last story in the collection were written way earlier, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s. A true test of time, these stories aren’t dated in the least. I usually gravitate toward contemporary authors. There was no way I could tell these stories were written long ago, and I loved them to death.

Are you sitting down? Hilma Wolitzer is 91 years old! She recently wrote the collection’s last story, “The Great Escape.” It’s about living in New York City during COVID times. It’s somewhat autobiographical, making it even more poignant. And man, is it ever relatable. Will we ever forget the fear of not finding TP? Or nervously trying to get this new-fangled Zoom to work? You’ll be nodding your head and feeling a ton.

I’m having trouble picking favorites. I d all the stories (no small feat), though the endings were a little too anti-climactic (or confusing) sometimes—not enough to lower my rating one iota, thank you very much. Many of the stories are linked—we see the same couple in different phases of their lives, happens in Strout’s work. The stories are all poignant, and there’s a lot of wit and wisdom. There are tales about infidelity, longing, sex, loneliness, jealousy, secret lives, childbirth, insomnia. In fact, the insomnia story, called “Night,” should be required reading for all insomniacs. Talk about cathartic! Only one story is terribly sad, and that’s about a woman who has just given birth. It’s excellent. Another standout is a bizarre story about a couple and an ex. But what am I saying? If I think about any of them, I go directly to my pogo stick!

I just love the opening to one of her stories (called “The Sex Maniac,” naturally):

“Everybody said there was a sex maniac loose in the complex and I thought—it’s about time.”

And a few other goodies (oh, a million to choose from!):

“We’d both become relief maps of keratosis, skin tags, and suspicious-looking moles.”

“I left the pocketbook on his counter, sneakily, as one leaves a litter of kittens in a vacant lot.”

“And I listened to the sounds of their voices with the happiness of a dog that has no use for words but is desperately alert to tone and pitch and timbre.”

“So I didn’t share my conviction that there was only one mystery left after a lengthy marriage: which partner would die first?”

I had never heard of this writer, but, oh, now, you better believe it, I’m going to hunt down her work. My brain was spinning; I knew her last name sounded familiar. Ping! Come to find out that her daughter is Meg Wolitzer, author of The Interestings, already on my To-Read pile.

Speaking of which, Meg recently interviewed her mother, and the fact that mother and daughter are both writers made the interview doubly intriguing. Here’s a link to the excellent interview, in case you’re interested:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

Grab this book if you brilliant short stories. You won’t be sorry.

Thanks to Edelweiss for the advance copy.
2021-best-reads all-time-favorites bookcase-of-faves-at-home ...more75 s Karen631 1,526

Most of the stories in this book were published in the 60’s and 70’s.
The title/first story was published in 1966 in The Saturday Evening Post.. but is so relatable even now, and the last story was written in 2020 and it involved a couple named Harold and Paulette just as the coronavirus hits New York.
That’s amazing since Wolitzer is 91 yrs old!!
Loved these stories especially several of the that were about Harold and Paulette through the years!
I’ll be checking out her other writings.
71 s Pedro208 589

For me, supermarkets are among the most horrible, dreadful and depressing places on earth. The sight of all those white lights eternally shining brightly over never ending corridors packed with stuff (I believe) we don’t actually need is enough to throw me into a spiral of fear of apocalyptic proportions.

That said, I’m forced to see the fact that I have been working in these soul killing places for more than ten years now is, in itself, a proof of my own resilience. Obviously, I’m not young or naive enough now to believe that working in something I don’t believe in for so many years didn’t or won’t affect my mental health in the future.

I think a lot of people assume that going mad, having a nervous breakdown or burning oneself out is something generally caused by a particular event losing a job, a loved one, an accident or a betrayal, for example. I don’t think that’s actually the case, and the reason people make those assumptions is actually related to, not only a lack of empathy but also, a lot of times, to the fact that they’re observing the world from a pedestal of privilege (and luck).

Let’s not forget that everybody’s life is a sequence of events.

Now, don’t get me wrong, because I’m not writing about all this looking for sympathy.
I think it’s actually very life affirming to think about the place where my parents started and the place where my brother, sister and I are at the moment. If that’s not called resilience then I guess I know nothing about life.

You see, in 1966 when the story that gives title to this wonderful collection of short stories was written, my dad, for example, while this woman was going mad in the supermarket, still didn’t know how it would feel to wear a pair of shoes or even that supermarkets existed, by the way. Oh, and only five years had passed since my grandmother gave birth to my mum in an isolated little house without any modern commodities such as electricity, a tap with running water or a midwife.

Once again, don’t get me wrong, please, because I do think this is an excellent well written short story collection. Ms. Wolitzer’s writing is outstanding and ALL the stories in this collection are some pretty amazing examples of understated storytelling. Also, despite the fact that almost all of these stories were written before I was even born, none of them felt even slightly outdated to me. The problems these characters went through are exactly the same ones people keep having to deal with over and over again and probably will have to until the end of times.

All in all, this was a great, great read.
I guess I just to give things some perspective once in a while.
born-in-the-usa now-you-re-in-new-york55 s Betsy RobinsonAuthor 11 books1,147

3/10/22 Update: Wonderful podcast on this book and the Covid story: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

I cannot explain it, but even though most of these stories were originally published in the 1960s and 1970s, nothing about this writing feels dated. The complete humanity of the characters and the expansive point of view to write them may have something to do with that. Assume nothing before and while reading this collection. Just be surprised.

How did I not know about Hilma Wolitzer, now 91 years old and still going strong? In fact the very last story was written in 2020 (story years are in parentheses at the end of each piece), and it was absolutely thrilling to read something current by someone 21 years older than I am. It was funny, gut-wrenching, and inspiring.

Thank you to my Goodreads friends who have been reviewing this wonderful book. I hope we can make it a bestseller for the amazing Ms. Wolitzer. She’s earned it.43 s Scott1,935 223

"Everybody said that there was a sex maniac loose in the [apartment] complex and I thought - it's about time. It had been a long asexual winter . . . " - the impish opening of 'Sex Maniac,' page 75

This thirteen short stories in this collection are mostly culled from the author's 60's and 70's output (with the notable exception of the concluding segment, which is from and set squarely in 2020), harkening back to when periodicals Esquire and The Saturday Evening Post would routinely present new short fiction pieces amongst their various articles. And this book also has quite the attention-grabbing title, although it is only from the standalone opening story and does not necessarily reflect on the other separate chapters. But what did I ultimately think about this book? It was really sort of divisive - although it was well-written, the modest and mostly humorless stories were often steeped in (too much) melancholy with women protagonists being unhappy in marriage, parenthood, or just life in general. (There has to be relatively happy or content girlfriends, wives and/or mothers in this world . . . they're just not the subjects of this book.) So some readers make shake their head in recognition or agreement, others may do so in loathing or dismay. What I did appreciate were several chapters interspersed throughout featuring Pauline and Howard, starting from when they were a somewhat young married couple and new parents in the late 1960's and leading to the aforementioned finale, which is set in the present day when they are octogenarians. Any guesses as to what world-wide health event irreversibly alters their relationship?42 s HBalikov1,898 759

Elizabeth Strout makes these points in her introduction to these short pieces. “Wolitzer always leaves enough spaces between the lines for us to embrace her work... This is part of her marvelousness as a writer….As are so many of the endings; there is a little bump, and we realize we have landed safely. This sense of safety—of being in safe hands—as we read is never to be underestimated. The reader does not have to know of this need, but the writer does. And in these stories, no matter what happens, we have the sense of safety that a great storyteller provides."
As a short story writer, Wolitzer excels at quickly drawing the reader into the protagonist’s predicament. It isn’t a sure thing but I believe that you will find yourself surprised by something in at least half of the stories.

You get full value in these stories:
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket
Waiting for Daddy
Photographs
Mrs. X
Sundays
Nights
Overtime
The Sex Maniac
Trophies
Bodies
Mother
Love
The Great Escape

There is not a “bad” story in this collection. I don’t want to spoil your exploration so I will only give you a small sample of her approach from “Sundays.” The narrator is a married woman who describes herself as “sunny” and “radiant” and so in love with her “depressed” husband. She tells us that the one thing that will get her husband out of bed is to read the Sunday real estate section and then, with their young children, look at suburban developments as an alternative to their city apartment. The wife and husband have a relationship that is fraught.
Does she understand herself? “Why am I so happy? It must be the triumph of the human spirit over genetics and environment.”
Does she understand her spouse? “What’s the matter, Howie? If something is bothering you, talk about it.” He smiles, that calculated half-smile, and I think that we hardly talk about anything that matters.”
Wolitzer plays with perspective and reality.

Again according to Strout: "Wolitzer is largehearted in her work, judging no one. And she is also an exquisite craftswoman. She understands how to render the details so well that we are immediately placed inside the story.... This is another part of Wolitzer’s wonder as a writer: she will start off in one place and end up in a situation one never would have imagined, and yet it ultimately makes a kind of perfect sense." 5*

My thanks to GR friend, Julie G, for introducing this author to me.34 s JimZ1,143 588

I thought all of the stories were well-written. However, I guess I was coming to the conclusion that the stories were just not right for me. That maybe some were dated. But then I read probably one of the best short stories I have read in a long time, ‘Mother’. And then I very much d her last story written in 2020 that was in the time of Covid-19, ‘The Great Escape’. So kudos to her. I’m impressed, and would recommend this to others to read.
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