The stories in Mimi Schwartz’s book, Thoughts From a Queen-Sized Bed, revel in the small things that often get lost in the big picture, overshadowed by achievements and crises.
By: Susan Van Dongen
The career of Princeton-based writer, editor and educator Mimi Schwartz is truly home-grown. Her first paid articles were a series of dispatches from a family trip to Israel, published in Ms. Schwartz’s local newspaper The Princeton Packet.
"When we were in Israel in 1972, I asked The Packet if (they) would be interested in essays about an American abroad," Ms. Schwartz says. "I had a series of three pieces on our life there. The feedback I got was so generous, it got me back into writing about my own life."
She hasn’t stopped since. Most recently, Ms. Schwartz has turned her talents into a collection of 36 personal essays, Thoughts From a Queen-Sized Bed, part of the new American Lives Series from the University of Nebraska Press. Ms. Schwartz will read from and sign her book at Barnes & Noble in West Windsor Jan. 24.
The stories in Queen-Sized Bed revel in the small things that often get lost in the big picture, overshadowed by achievements and crises.
In addition, writing about her 40-year marriage to Princeton University economics professor Stuart Schwartz helps her challenge the mainstream media’s focus on the decline of long-term commitments.
"The idea of an all-or-nothing marriage either you’re happy or miserable is way too simplistic," says Ms. Schwartz, adding that real life is nothing like a TV sitcom, where problems get solved between commercial breaks. "The media versions of marriage didn’t match my own experience or that of others I knew. There wasn’t enough nuance or complexity of feelings."
Women readers especially will appreciate the way Ms. Schwartz initiated a new career while raising children and approaching middle age. Her efforts were rewarded when, in 1980, she garnered a full-time position in the English department at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Pomona. Ms. Schwartz is modest about her mid-life achievements, however.
"Women in my generation got married at 21 and had no clue about what else we could become," she says. "We had our babies first, then we figured out what else we might do besides being a wife and mother. It’s the flip side of what’s happening to many women today."
Essays like "Tomboyhood Revisited" and "Game Plan" express a feminist message, but not one that is militant or dogmatic. Many of the pieces address women’s concerns at mid-life, such as aging in a youth-obsessed culture, balancing career and relationships and the illnesses that come with hot flashes and wrinkles. Ms. Schwartz doesn’t preach, though. She shares her thoughts with writing that is honest and frequently funny.
Many of the story seeds for Queen-Sized Bed came to Ms. Schwartz in the middle of the night. An unabashed morning person, she says she does her best work before the sun rises and the phones start ringing.
"Of course, by 7:30 in the evening I’m nodding out," she says.
Ms. Schwartz grew up in Forest Hills, N.Y., to parents who fled Germany "two steps ahead of the Nazis." After The Packet published her reports from Israel, friends and co-workers at Stuart Country Day School encouraged her to write, especially her quirky first-person essays. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Writer’s Digest and Tikkun, as well as in a number of major literary journals. In addition to her teaching at Stockton College, she teaches advanced writing at Vermont College and at the annual Cape May Writer’s winter "getaway."
Queen-Sized Bed is the first collection of her work, although Ms. Schwartz has edited various anthologies of other essays and memoirs.
"I’ve always been interested in other people’s stories," she says. "(My curiosity about) the non-famous has driven my teaching as well as my writing. It’s in the small things that you discover the big things."
One big thing that did influence her life was her bout with breast cancer, which coincided almost to the day with her husband’s near-fatal heart attack. Ms. Schwartz used her misfortune as material and writes about the double tragedy in the essay, "A Night for Harvoset." Through her words, she is generous enough to pass along wisdom to her readers.
"Our illnesses turned out to be a positive thing," she says. "We were in super high gear with lots of stress, and anything that wasn’t career-oriented wasn’t given much importance. The illnesses slowed us down a little. We nursed each other back to health. Stu calls that period ‘our recuperative honeymoon,’ and it really redefined our relationship.
"We were at this point of strain, which you have sometimes in mid-life, and the illnesses made us much closer. Sometimes one person ends up doing all the giving, but marriage is about giving and taking. Because we had to help each other, we both learned how to give. (The illnesses) stopped us from being so concerned just about ourselves."
Mimi Schwartz will read from and sign Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed at Barnes & Noble, 3535 Route 1 South, West Windsor, Jan. 24, 7 p.m. Free admission. For information, call (609) 716-1570.