Publishers Weekly
★ 01/27/2020
In this intimate memoir, Wizenberg (A Homemade Life) shares the story of her changing sexual orientation, the dissolution of her marriage, and the challenges of coming out to her friends and family. While serving on a jury as a 36-year-old married mother of a toddler, Wizenberg became captivated by a female attorney she met. Soon after the trial, she shared her newfound feelings and confusion with her chef and restaurant owner husband, Brandon, who responded with a mix of kindness and fear. Just as “astronomers know that every star is in motion and that each moves along its own trajectory, according to its own properties,” Wizenberg writes, she realized she needed to let go of rigid definitions about identity and face the challenges of navigating the complexities of love. Throughout, she integrates observations from well-known researchers, in particular the work of Lisa Diamond, who found that the norm among women “was not stability in sexual attraction and identity but change.” Wizenberg writes with a remarkable openness about being true to herself and to others, and gives those looking to understand the complicated issue of sexuality a compassionate example of the many forms that love takes. This honest and moving memoir will enlighten and educate those seeking to understand their true selves. (May)
Electric Literature
Wizenberg is an excellent writer; her meditations on what it means to know yourself—or think you know yourself—and how unpredictable and exciting life really is are a joy to read.
Shelf Awareness - Nell Beram
"A work of blindsiding beauty."
author of Blue Plate Special and The Last Cruise - Kate Christensen
The Fixed Stars is that rare thing, a groundbreaking, essential book about sexuality. Wizenberg’s incisive, generous laying-bare of her own experience will make many readers feel seen, understood, and not alone. This book is a triumph."
Bustle
a touching look at modern love and life
Parade
“The Fixed Stars is a beautiful memoir about desire, divorce, coming out to family and friends and co-parenting through separation.”
From the Publisher
The Fixed Stars is that rare thing, a groundbreaking, essential book about sexuality. Wizenberg’s incisive, generous laying-bare of her own experience will make many readers feel seen, understood, and not alone. This book is a triumph."—Kate Christensen, author of Blue Plate Special and The Last Cruise
"A work of blindsiding beauty."—Nell Beram, Shelf Awareness
“The Fixed Stars is a nuanced look into two subjects frequently depicted as binary: love and sexuality. Wizenberg writes of her journey into queerness with tenderness and curiosity, two essential qualities for any sort of entry into new lands. This book spoke directly to my heart. Read it.”—Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias
“In The Fixed Stars, Molly Wizenberg tackles the ever-shifting issues of marriage, motherhood, and sexual orientation with the same compassion and unflinching honesty that have become the hallmarks of her writing. She makes the everyday extraordinary and brings depth and complexity to the bigger questions in life. A beautiful read.”—Erica Bauermeister, author of The Scent Keeper
“The Fixed Stars, like its protagonist, is both brave and sexy, both heady and bodily, and I ripped through this memoir like it was the most erudite romance novel in the world. This is a truly compelling look at sexuality, marriage, and parenthood in this century.” —Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here and The Vacationers
“Interwoven throughout with research insights into the complexity of female sexual identity, Wizenberg's book not only offers a glimpse into the shifting nature of selfhood; it also celebrates one woman's hard-won acceptance of her own sexual difference. A courageous and thought-provoking memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Wizenberg is an excellent writer; her meditations on what it means to know yourself—or think you know yourself—and how unpredictable and exciting life really is are a joy to read.”—Electric Literature
“This is a spirited, terrifyingly courageous, and searingly honest memoir of discovering sexual identity and strength.”—Booklist
“The Fixed Stars is a beautiful memoir about desire, divorce, coming out to family and friends and co-parenting through separation.”—Parade
“a touching look at modern love and life”—Bustle
“Through personal recollections, told in quietly beautiful prose you feel the urge to read out loud, she examines what happens before, during and after a seismic shift. A welcome reminder that sometimes feeling lost and found go hand-in-hand”—A Cup of Jo
Booklist
This is a spirited, terrifyingly courageous, and searingly honest memoir of discovering sexual identity and strength.
author of The Scent Keeper - Erica Bauermeister
In The Fixed Stars, Molly Wizenberg tackles the ever-shifting issues of marriage, motherhood, and sexual orientation with the same compassion and unflinching honesty that have become the hallmarks of her writing. She makes the everyday extraordinary and brings depth and complexity to the bigger questions in life. A beautiful read.
author of All Adults Here and The Vacationers - Emma Straub
The Fixed Stars, like its protagonist, is both brave and sexy, both heady and bodily, and I ripped through this memoir like it was the most erudite romance novel in the world. This is a truly compelling look at sexuality, marriage, and parenthood in this century.
author of The Collected Schizophrenias - Esmé Weijun Wang
The Fixed Stars is a nuanced look into two subjects frequently depicted as binary: love and sexuality. Wizenberg writes of her journey into queerness with tenderness and curiosity, two essential qualities for any sort of entry into new lands. This book spoke directly to my heart. Read it.
A Cup of Jo
Through personal recollections, told in quietly beautiful prose you feel the urge to read out loud, she examines what happens before, during and after a seismic shift. A welcome reminder that sometimes feeling lost and found go hand-in-hand
author of The Collected Schizophrenias - Esmé Weijun Wang
The Fixed Stars is a nuanced look into two subjects frequently depicted as binary: love and sexuality. Wizenberg writes of her journey into queerness with tenderness and curiosity, two essential qualities for any sort of entry into new lands. This book spoke directly to my heart. Read it.
Library Journal
★ 02/01/2020
When food writer Wizenberg (A Homemade Life) reports for jury duty, she is surprised to find herself attracted to the female defense attorney. Even though she has been married to her husband for a decade and they have a toddler at home, she can't shake the thought of this woman. What follows is an intimate account of how this chance encounter upended her marriage and set in motion a new direction for her life and for her family. Drawing on the work of queer writers, including Alison Bechdel and Maggie Nelson, Wizenberg's beautifully written memoir explores what it's like to come out even while continuing to question one's identity and sexual orientation. The book tackles these complicated themes and the meaning of family with compassion and tenderness. VERDICT An essential addition that will resonate with fans of Wizenberg's earlier memoirs and anyone probing the complicated ways that sexuality and traditional family life overlap or diverge.—Erin Shea, Ferguson Lib., CT
JUNE 2020 - AudioFile
Molly Wizenberg, memoirist and cohost of the podcast “Spilled Milk,” partners with narrator Erin Mallon to share the next chapter in her life’s journey. Mallon’s companionable tone anchors the unfolding events. As a self-described “by-the-book” child, Wizenberg possessed a keen desire to succeed and advocate for others. Her life was upended at age 36 when, on jury duty, she experienced an unexpected attraction to a female attorney that sent her on a life-changing exploration of her own sexual identity. As Wizenberg plumbs her past relationships and behaviors for insights into the evolution of her desires, she also comes to terms with herself as a mother, wife, and business owner. This production will bolster listeners who are searching for the courage to live their own lives. J.R.T. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-02-17
A bestselling memoirist’s account of coping with an unexpected midlife evolution in sexual identity.
When Wizenberg, who runs the popular Orangette blog, received a jury duty summons, she never thought that it would lead to divorce. In court, her eyes were immediately drawn to a female defense attorney dressed in a men’s suit. Her thoughts lingered on the attractive stranger after each day’s proceedings. But guilt at being “a woman wearing a wedding ring” made the author feel increasingly guilty for the obsession that seized her. Her husband, Brandon, a successful Seattle restaurateur, and their daughter were the “stars” that guided her path; the books she had written revolved like planets around the sun of their relationship and the restaurants they had founded together. However, in the weeks that followed, Wizenberg shocked herself by telling her husband about the attraction and suggesting that they open their marriage to polyamorous experimentation. Reading the work of writers like Adrienne Rich who had discovered their lesbianism later in life, Wizenberg engaged in deep, sometimes-painful self-interrogation. The author remembered the story of a married uncle, a man she resembled, who came out as gay and then later died of AIDS as well as a brief lesbian flirtation in late adolescence where “nothing happened.” Eventually, Wizenberg began dating the lawyer and fell in love with her. Wizenberg then began the painful process of separating herself from Brandon and, later, from their restaurant businesses that she had quietly seen as impediments to her writing. Feeling unfulfilled by Nora, a self-professed “stone top” who preferred to give pleasure rather than receive it, Wizenberg began to date a nonbinary person named Ash. Through that relationship, she came to embrace both gender and sexual fluidity. Interwoven throughout with research insights into the complexity of female sexual identity, Wizenberg’s book not only offers a glimpse into the shifting nature of selfhood; it also celebrates one woman’s hard-won acceptance of her own sexual difference.
A courageous and thought-provoking memoir.
