Gossip

by Miriam Sagan

Cultural Writing. Essays. GOSSIP is a collection of personal essays that covers themes from a woman's life, ranging from love magic to marriage, old boyfriends to solitude. At the age of fifty, the author learns to shoot a gun for the first time and confront fear. There are essays here on on language and meaning--including ethical wills, blessings, and credos. And memoirs that chart a course including young widowhood, raising a child, a re-union with a high school boyfriend, re-marriage, and ventures into middle age. As Laurie Wagner "Sagan is writer whose obsessive ability to observe the ordinary details of domestic life--the nuance of motherhood, marriage and friendship--allow her to lift the veil on the mundane, the things we take for granted, to reveal their more sacred properties. Reading these stories reminded me that I don't have to go far to find beauty and magic in my life, that it might be waiting for me in a simple bowl of mole."

120 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2007

About the author

Miriam Sagan founded the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College. She is author of twenty-five books, including her first novel, Coastal Lives, and her memoir Searching for a Mustard Seed: A Young Widow's Unconventional Story, which won Best Memoir of the Year from Independent Publishers Association.

She won the New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award in Poetry, and has received the Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Reviews

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this title up while on vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico at a bookstore called Collected Works in the historic part of downtown. It was a serendipitous meeting, since the young woman working at the store gave the vague response "those books are scattered throughout the store" when I asked about essay collections written by local authors. Okay, uhm, thanks.

I love the cover of Gossip, though I'm not 100% sure of the relevance or connection (unless it's simply two women gossiping), and each essay is only a couple pages long. The perfect length to read while waiting for a shuttle bus to pick you up after a hike. The essays are on the theme of advice and I believe the intended audience is probably women around my age. The first couple of essays focus on hetero-relationships and didn't hold as much appeal to me, but I greatly enjoyed the essays on time, naps, fun, and how to talk to a widow. The last couple of essays are by far my favorite "Ethical Will", "Credo" and "Count Your Blessings". I know I will reread several of these essays as time goes by.