Based in part on a To Do list she composed when she turned forty, the essays in Shiksa Goddess range from the state of the arts to the state of the author’s eating habits, from a spoof on New York real estate agents to the fate of Polish Jews in the Holocaust, and from the death of a sister to the birth of a daughter. Throughout, Wendy Wasserstein brings her distinctive blend of self-deprecating humor, keen observation, satirical wit, and a profound grasp of the pathos and comedy that underlie human existence. As she writes in the preface, describing the anxiety over the birth of her premature daughter, "I realized that my day-to-day way of getting through it was partially due to the eye I developed as a comic essayist. I was able to survey the situation for every ridiculous anecdote while maintaining a nonsentimental center for what is truly important" [p. x]. In fact, that statement might serve as a description for the way she approaches all of her subjects–with a readiness to see the comic side of any experience and a sure sense of what’s significant. Whether she’s writing about her mother’s quirky advice, Chekhov’s plays, the need for American theater to cultivate new audiences, or the career of cookie maven Martha Entenmann, Wasserstein finds what is seriously funny in whatever she brings into her lens.

For fans of Wendy Wasserstein’s plays, and for anyone who enjoys the art of the essay, Shiksa Goddess provides a fascinating glimpse into the author’s way of thinking about herself, her friends and family, her forties, and her lifelong love affair with the theater.