WANTING

Women writers present vastly varying perspectives and journeys of the meaning, cost, and fulfillment of their wishes.

Kahn and McMasters, editors of This Is the Place, take a similar tack in this second compendium of personal essays. Their introduction lays out their sincere yet sappy aims—e.g., “to create a space for women to interrogate and luxuriate in their desire.” The editors cast a notably wide net, although several essays would have benefitted from tighter editing. While the majority of pieces are engaging, frequent unoriginal word choices wear thin—desire appears nearly 250 times. The contributors explore myriad topics related to wanting objects (a $500 pair of cowboy boots, a dildo) in addition to experiences, which run the gamut from criminal to spiritual but are predominantly sexual. Tracing longings to their roots, many of the essayists deploy powerful metaphors that possess the capacity to connect women to themselves. The cowboy boots, for example, signify far more than footwear. “The opposite of a cowboy is an Indian woman,” writes Rena Priest. “I exist in the aftermath and ruin wrought by cowboys….I desire the power available to the self-assured cowboys of the American West.” In a stunning consideration of the enjoyment she takes in being sexually degraded by her White husband, Keyanah B. Nurse both implicates and empowers herself: “I center my own pleasure.” Long stymied by self-doubt, Domenica Ruta acknowledges craving “that feeling of control I first discovered in my abortion…the knowledge that my body would do exactly what I wanted it to do.” In an excellent study of Thomas Merton’s thorny relationship with his yearnings, Amanda Petrusich writes, “It’s a brutal cycle—we want things, we get things, we want more things, we get them, we want more.” By turns piercing and bloated, the book’s core magnetism lies in its breadth of voices and their respective depths. Other contributors include Larissa Pham, Karen Russell, Lisa Taddeo, Camille Dungy, and Melissa Febos.

Despite repetitive language, this anthology will appeal to fans of women’s short-form confessional nonfiction.