The Other Woman: Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal: Victoria Zackheim

"The Other Woman" has long been the object of scorn and scandal, no matter the country or decade. Across time she has reigned as the home-wrecker, parasite, shadow-wife. She is the one the husband, boyfriend, or in some modern cases, the wife, runs to when marriage is too much. In The Other Woman Victoria Sackheim gathers together memoirs from all across the board, from women who have been wronged to women who made it their duty to take that man that they knew they wanted, even though he was married. The end result is a book that may change the way we see that woman who looms so large in the minds of many as an object of hate.

The memoirs in this book are a vast collection. They run the gamut from Mary Jo Eustace's record of her shattered marriage by that most popular of other woman, the hollywood startlet, in this case Tori Spelling. In "Once Upon a Time It Took Three" Binnie Kirshenbaum leads us through a history of courtly love and the necessity for a mistress, because the idea of love between a husband and wife was considered wrong in the middle ages and unstable. Sherry Glaser tells of falling in love with "Sheba" and the strength it took to leave her own co-dependent girlfriend. In "The Man with the Big Hands," Maxinne Rhea Leighton shows that sexual abuse can turn a child into another woman at the tender age of six years. Even the editor, Victoria Zackheim, chimes in with "Phantom Wife," detailing six years she spent with a charming Irishman whose heart would always be with the ex-wife who had cut him out of her life.

Pound for pound and word for word, each memoir in this book is worth the time to read. Every one of these is very true and comes from a deep place inside each of these writers. It shows that even though "The Other Woman" is out there, she isn't aways who, or what, you think she is. She may be a vulnerable and scared girl who was pulled into something that she didn't know how to end, or she may have gone into it with every intention of never breaking up a marriage. Sometimes these women only want the little bit that they can have. Whoever she is, she's just like us and she could be us given the right situation. The possibility always exists.
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Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (June 13, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0446580228
ISBN-13: 978-0446580229
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