TBR: A Round-Heeled Woman
In the Fall of 1999, Jane Juska ran the following personal ad in the New York Review of Books:
Before I turn 67 — next March — I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.
A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance is Juska’s story of what happened after she ran that ad, along with some discussion of what led her to it. In short, she had some really creepy dates, met some interesting men, had some good sex, was introduced to some of the literary wonders of New York (the desk where Melville worked at the Customs House, Trollope’s hand-written manuscripts), fell in love, and was rejected by the one she loved. It’s a quick and entertaining read — Juska generously shares the joys of her adventures, but turns into funny stories the moments that must have been agonizing to actually live through. (She also throws in some interesting discussions about teaching, both in high school and in prison, although at times they seem to have wandered in from a different book, maybe True Notebooks.)
Hugo Schwyzer writes today about why he believes that the highest form of commitment — to which one should aspire to — is "the commitment to be a loving, reliable, and enduring presence in the lives of those with whom we have chosen to be sexually involved."
I’m not sure that Juska would disagree. But I’m pretty sure that she would say that it was not realistic for her to hold out for such a commitment — at 66, divorced for 30 years, the odds were against her. (Due to both women’s longer lives and the traditional pattern of men partnering with younger women, there are many more older women looking for men than the reverse.) And given the choice between sex outside of a committed relationship, and no sex at all, she was not willing to give up on the likelihood of sex — other than with herself — being part of her life.
Juska concludes:
"I take pleasure in the memory of lying next to a man who knew what to do with me. I recall with equal pleasure the conversations with intelligent men who were lively and curious and thoughtful and who liked to talk with me. That was a surprise. I never thought we would actually, as my ad offered, ‘talk first.’ But we did, first and last and sometimes, in the middle. All my parts have been fed by these men. They have made me a rich woman. But rich doesn’t mean full, and rich as I am, I am not full."
The book got a lot of favorable attention when it came out. I hope it made Juska decent money, so she’s able to travel to New York without having to be a not-fully-wanted guest. And I’m enough of a romantic that I want to believe that maybe it brought her someone to love and be loved by. (The note at the end of this CBS story suggests that maybe it did.)
Update: This NY Times story (via F-words) says that Juska has a second book coming out this spring, and that her story does not have the happy ending I hoped for:
"I am moved to tears with longing and love for this man," Ms. Juska writes, "with despair and regret for what cannot be."
January 18th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Her ad was also one of the nicest, best-written, and most appealing ads I’ve ever seen in NYRB personals. Lot of desperately unfunny paragraphs in there. I always imagine that the men who reply have to spend the first half of the date exclaiming, “By gum, you really are pretty! You don’t look a day over twenty-five! No, I don’t think anything about you sags too much!”
January 18th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Amy:
I’m told that the “correct” line is “You look much thinner without your clothes”
January 20th, 2006 at 6:59 am
I want to add in a couple of books, neither of which I have read, and a review: Charlotte Simmons and Lipstick Party. Caitlin Flanagan has reviewed Lipstick Party and Powells has posted it out from behind the pay wall: http://www.powells.com/review/2006_01_17.html
Flanagan’s review is not a very good piece of writing, nowhere near as good as her usual, there are some loose ends. What ties the three together is that it seems to me that a lot of courtship now, for women, is: have sex with the guy and hope that it gets his attention sufficiently that he might talk with you, choose to spend time with you, and maybe grow fond of you. Flanagan opens her review with a story she heard of a bar mitzvah in Chicago, and on the bus from the bar mitzvah to the after party all the girls gave the boys Lewinskys. Yikes! This has nothing to do with my junior high school experience – and it unnerves the Hell out of me with my older boy three years from middle school.
The stories I have heard from friends with kids in college are of relatively joyless hook ups – again the Charlotte Simmons book seems to describe current reality. And Roundheeled Woman – again, I have read reviews, not the book – again looks like a sort of desperation play for companionship.
What to do for my sons and my daughter, to make available to them a companionship-and-fondness notion of pairing rather than an on-your-knees-before-I-will-even-talk-with-you model? It looks pretty bleak.
January 20th, 2006 at 7:55 am
I read the Flanagan review in the Atlantic, and thought it was interesting. It didn’t piss me off the way she often does. (Although I was annoyed that she shared details from the Starr report that I had managed to avoid over the past 6 years.)
I think the difference between Juska and the teenage girls that Flanagan writes about (although she thinks the stories of “train parties” are probably apocryphal) is that Juska wanted sex for its own sake, not just to attract male attention. I think she’d say that she had plenty of companionship in her life — but she wanted sex as well.
Juska ultimately concludes that it’s hard for her to have sex without getting emotionally involved and wanting more than the men she met were ready to give, which Flanagan claims is universally true for women/girls. But at least at the end of Roundheeled Woman, I think Juska would say that she’s happier having posted the ad, met interesting men, had sex, and had her heart bruised if not broken, than if she hadn’t.
I have no interest in reading either Lipstick Party or Charlotte Simmons from what I’ve heard of them. I do plan on reading Juska’s new book when it comes out.
February 15th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Thanks for your review of this book. I never would have noticed/read it without your review. And, while I didn’t think it was a great book, it was a very enjoyable read. I felt a bit like I was reading the last chapter of a mystery to read the update about Graham in the NYT to which you linked. Having just finished “Round-Heeled Woman” I really wanted to live in the fantasy that she was still happily sleeping with him.
I look forward to reading her next book and seeing what comes next.