Mara Altman

The chief appeal of Altman’s essays so far has been their relatability. If you’re a millennial woman in a modern Western society, you’re likely to find elements of your own experience in all three of the above pieces. Not so much here: few of us will have attempted to become a stand-up comedian in New York. Nor does this flow quite as easily as Altman’s earlier works, perhaps because we find her in a moment of extreme stress. Her first book has done well, but not quite well enough; her new ‘Great American Novel’ has just been harshly rejected by her editor; and she spirals into a panic at the thought of what to do next. With logic that perhaps only makes sense in New York, she decides that the solution to her cash-strapped situation is to do stand-up. (Her husband Dave doesn’t agree, but if you’ve read the other Kindle Singles listed here, you’ll have formed an impression of Dave as a cuddly culinary obsessive whose placid nature is dwarfed by Altman’s dynamic neuroses, and you won’t be surprised when she doesn’t listen to him.) Altman goes on a quest for jokes and one-liners, and signs up to a comedy course, but it’s hard to shake off the feeling, as a reader, that the material is rather thin...

For the full review, and comments on other books by Altman, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/05/16/the-world-according-to-mara-altman/… (mere)

Mara Altman has been married to her husband Dave for two years, and it’s beginning to get unbearable. Friends, relatives and complete strangers are all paying an inordinate amount of attention to her body shape, and speculating whether it might change any time soon; in short, when will she get pregnant? Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? You find the love of your life, get married and make mini humans. Or is it? In a state of increasing panic, Altman wonders what it actually means to have a child. Is she ready to give up the dreams of travel and freedom that always felt so important to her? What does it feel like to be pregnant? What’s the truth about being a parent? How can she reconcile her friends’ assurances that parenthood is ‘the best thing ever’ with their red-rimmed, puffy eyes and sleep deprivation? How can she decide if this is the right thing for her or not? And how long does she have before the choice gets made for her?

For the full review, and comments on other books by Altman, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/05/16/the-world-according-to-mara-altman/… (mere)

Facial hair on women. It’s a thing. (Honestly, it is a thing. Yes, those are my tweezers.) Altman learns to be self-conscious about hers at the age of nineteen, when a handsome waiter compliments her ‘blonde moustache’. The paranoia lingers (‘If I caught myself in the right light in my bedroom, I could see a vague resemblance to Tom Selleck’). Now, at thirty, she’s wondering how to break the news to her fiance Dave (‘a wonderful man who is covered in hair. He not only makes me feel happy; he also makes me feel smooth’). How will he react to the news that women spend their lives fighting a desperate and losing battle against encroaching hair, spending vast sums of money just so that their men don’t ‘run screaming into the night’? Of course, we shouldn’t have to do this. But we do, because we feel compelled to follow the ‘societal standard that all women must be smooth, supple, hairless creatures’...

For the full review, and comments on other books by Altman, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/05/16/the-world-according-to-mara-altman/… (mere)