Hilma Wolitzer's feminist tales in Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket

Hilma Wolitzer. Photo / Supplied

Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket
Hilma Wolitzer
Bloomsbury, $33

In these long, loose weeks of waiting for the world to reopen, it's wonderful to read short stories as tart, funny and economic as these ones – although be warned, they do leave a lingering aftertaste of disillusionment.

Most of the stories in Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket were first published in the 1960s and 70s and are told from the perspective of middle-class women who married because they couldn't see an alternative, who find housework boring and their children wondrous but irritating, and who pretend to defer to their partners' wishes while managing absolutely everything. Each is a particular kind of feminist tale from a particular period of time. They are little domestic scenes preserved in amber, although the narrators' concerns remain relevant 50 years later.

In the title story, a young woman in crisis is brushed aside as quickly as her husband can be located. She stands in a supermarket aisle, her children glued to her skirt, and wails, "How can I bear it?" Other shoppers are thrilled by the drama but pull away. When her husband arrives he mutters, "What's the matter with you?" and leads her to the car. The real story is the one the narrator tries to piece together later at home. What help was needed, and who would provide it?

A couple named Paulette and Howard appear again and again – at the hospital having their first child, dealing with the aftermath of Howard's father's death, visiting showhomes to alleviate depression. Howard is movie-star handsome and unfaithful. Paulette is tall, steady and forgiving. They love each other madly.

Paulette gets all the funniest lines, things like: "Everybody said that there was a sex maniac on the loose in the complex and I thought – it's about time. It had been a long, asexual winter." When the pair try to set up Howard's ex-wife with another man, Paulette says, "I did the best I could, flaunting my domestic joy at this stranger like a bullfighter's cape".

In "The Great Escape", written in 2020, Paulette and Howard both get Covid-19. By this time, Paulette says, "We had been together for such a long time that all of our grievances had been set aside, if not completely forgotten."

It's another funny, wry, touching story, all the more poignant because it is based on Hilda Wolitzer's own experience of falling sick with Covid-19 at age 90 and losing her husband, Monty, to the virus. She wrote it six months after his death, with encouragement from her daughter, novelist Meg Wolitzer.

Having started writing later in life, Wolitzer has produced a rich collection of work, including novels, YA fiction and non-fiction. Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is her 15th book and it may not be her last – she is now working on poetry.

Reviewed by Eleanor Black