Until a trusted book friend recommended Romantic Comedy to me, I had not given Curtis Sittenfeld’s work much thought. I had, I’ll admit, judged it by its covers which looked to me both juvenile and fluffy. I took my friend’s advice though and read (or listened to in my case) Romantic Comedy and I found it to be unexpectedly clever and charming. So I was excited to hear when her new book was announced and because I love short stories, I was even more excited to hear it was a story collection.
As a collection, the stories work together well, although they do tend to run together in my mind now as I write this, a few days after finishing the book. The protagonists are mostly middle-aged, middle class women. A lot of them live in the American Midwest or in somewhere vaguely in New England (I’m not honestly sure which states are included in New England). Some of them are mothers, though not all. Most of them are fairly successful in their chosen field though a few haven’t progressed in life the way they once thought they would. There’s a lot of divorce or relationships on the brink of divorce. The couples who are married mostly don’t seem very happy in their marriages or there is infidelity or infidelity is looming.
As I read each story I was very much invested in the story. Sittenfeld is skilled at creating an atmosphere, a world, in just a few pages. Her characters feel familiar (maybe because I’m a middle-aged, middle class woman?) and it isn’t hard at all to step into their lives. It feels like Sittenfeld has found her niche – or maybe, in another writing cliche, she’s writing what she knows – and she doesn’t stray far from it in this collection. Again, I did enjoy these stories, it’s simply that a few days later, I’m struggling to separate some of the details.
A couple did stick out for me a little more. In “The Marriage Clock”, a woman flies to a southern state to convince the author of a popular marriage self-help book to allow a same-sex couple in the movie version of his book. She’s married, works in Hollywood, and refers to this author as “the homophobe”, so she’s surprised to find him much more charming than she expected and as their day progresses, begins to wonder if she’ll have an affair with him.
In “The Richest Babysitter in the World”, the main character reminisces on the time she babysat for a young family, well before the father of the family went on to become the richest man in the world. (A thinly veiled Jeff Bezos and Amazon but a shockingly humanizing portrayal of such a man and the story ends on such an interesting question.)
There’s some lovely emphasis on female friendship, the strength of it and the endurance that it can have, often outlasting jobs and marriages. There are recurrent themes of motherhood that is past the super needy little kid stage, of mothers getting to know their children who are on the cusp of adulthood.
If you’d like to spend a bit of time with some thoughtful but easy to digest short stories, or you’re curious about Sittenfeld’s work, I think this collection is a great one to pick up.
Karissa Reads Books 
I disliked Curtis Sittenfeld’s Rodham so much that I didn’t finish it – although to be fair, I don’t usually get along with fictionalised accounts of real people.
Your review of Show Don’t Tell makes me think I’ll try her work again.
Yeah, I’ve had no desire to read that one. I’ve only read Romantic Comedy but this felt like a fair example of her writing style.
I feel weird that the one story went from “he’s a homophobe” to “I could sleep with him” so fast. Sometimes, I just do not understand.
Yeah, I didn’t relate much to any of these women, even though outwardly it seemed like I might have. I felt like this woman specifically was looking for a chance to have an affair and so it didn’t take much.
I had to check my own blog to see if I had read a book by Curtis Sittenfeld, because this very much feels like an author I would have read by now. I don’t think I have though. Maybe I’m just saying that because I’m a middle class woman in similar life situations too LOL
I also thought this was a male writer because of the name, so clearly I’m not familiar with this author at all!
Haha, I have to do that too sometimes. I think you would enjoy her work. I have the feeling that it’s all fairly similar to what I read here and I think it does appeal to those of us who can at least somewhat identify with the characters!