'Behind the Bedroom Door: Getting It, Giving It, Loving It, Missing It'
BOOK REVIEW
In the last few years, anthologies of personal essays have appeared on the subjects of love, divorce, grief, anger, food, money, having boy children, having girl children, having toddlers, having teenagers, having dogs, dating losers, being bad, being betrayed, being fat, being thin, being sick, being middle-aged, gardening and traveling alone.
There are a lot of practical reasons why a themed anthology of personal essays is a good idea. No one has to write a whole book, and no one need be paid to write a whole book either. While the editor gets a modest advance and royalties, not uncommonly contributors are paid in copies. Should there be a fee for the writer, it is usually less than that paid your average magazine article. The editor (who often has a background in magazines, hence a Rolodex full of authors who want to stay on her A-list), need find only a few big names to put on the cover and improve her Amazon search results -- everybody else can be relative unknowns who are flattered to be included.
Finally, although single-author collections of essays have intrinsic marketing handicaps (unless they happen to be written by David Sedaris), these anthologies have a clear audience -- divorcees, say, or new mothers, or the bereaved. They are literature, but they are also self-help. They are a support group where you don't have to say anything and someone has already edited out the boring stuff.
I have contributed to several of these anthologies, have reviewed others, have blurbed my share. I am friends, or at least Facebook friends, with many of the editors and writers of these books, and am at present writing pieces for two forthcoming collections (women and faith; writers and their favorite words). It is surely true that personal essay anthologies are hot -- and that the subject of the current review, "Behind the Bedroom Door," is a hottie among hotties. Fuchsia kissy-lips on a chartreuse cover and what a topic. Women tell all about their sex lives! "All" is no exaggeration here.
Yet the reality is that many of the 26 essays in "Behind the Bedroom Door" do not offer pure titillation -- many are difficult, sad or disturbing rather than exciting. Editor Paula Derrow knew what she was doing -- depth, variety and intensity of personal revelation was clearly something she valued. "It's scary to do something that lets another person in on so much private information, but it's also ruthlessly efficient," writes Susan Cheever in the first essay in the collection, a joyous paean to one-night stands.
