The Wandering Womb

"Wisenberg is an affecting guide through the nuances, joys, and complications of contemporary Jewish womanhood; The Wandering Womb both celebrates those identities and mourns the past pains that they reflect."—Foreword Reviews

"Wisenberg continues her frank and provocative inquiries into perceptions of the female body . . . Drawing on her journalist’s skills and literary prowess, she applies her audacious incisiveness and wit to her family’s stories as Jews who fled pogrom-ravaged Russia and settled in Houston and Selma."—Booklist

"Wisenberg's direct tone and wide-ranging curiosity make this collection one to recommend, especially to those with an interest in the ways that history and memory intertwine."—Shelf Awareness 

"A reader doesn’t have to be a Jewish feminist of a certain age to find something that resonates in S.L. Wisenberg’s compelling collection . . . These pieces are far more than personal essays. Wisenberg weaves her personal experience growing up in Houston, Texas as the grandchild of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants with reflections on her own experience as a woman in the world. She connects her observations to literature and history, writing a book that hums with both the past and contemporary life."—Southern Review of Books

“Each essay is a lens through which we are invited to view in Joycean detail the author’s deeply personal present, yet at the same time to ponder and to rethink larger worlds of history and cultures. It’s a collection that often is wry but never cynical, acutely learned and always alert to humor and wonder.”—David Toomey, author of Weird Life: The Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own

"Sometimes subtle, sometimes fierce, these brilliant essays express what it's like to be a Jewish woman today, and what it's like to be an embodied human being."—Paula Kamen, author of Finding Iris Chang

“Wisenberg’s years as a journalist show in the precision of her writing, as she leads us through both the distant and proximate past, from Civil-War reenactments to the private world of the mikvah. In The Wandering Womb, history breathes into our lungs and speaks through every word we say.”—Riva Lehrer, author of Golem Girl: A Memoir

“A sharp, deeply questioning mind and a wayward heart inform these delicious essays. They are wry, humorous, melancholy, and universally relatable, filled with the shock of recognition.”—Phillip Lopate, author of Portrait Inside My Head: Essays

“[A]ll the essays are all well written and consistently interesting.”—Rabbi Rachel Esserman, The Reporter