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Five
Men Who Broke My Heart: A Memoir by Susan Shapiro Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Engaging Susan Shapiro’s memoir, Five Men
Who Broke My Heart, engages readers from the outset, and absorbs us as
she revisits five men from her past and tries to deconstruct what went wrong.
Her candor becomes disarming, and it is her honesty in reflecting on herself
that makes reading this book interesting. It’s difficult to appreciate in the
memoir of a relatively young person any perspective and wisdom that’s
acquired through aging. Also, women are more likely to appreciate this book
than will men. Here’s an excerpt,
all of Chapter 8, pp. 86-92: October
2000 The Biographer I called Richard Lacks,”
I told my mother over the phone. “I found him in “Why would he call you back?” she
asked. “If an ex called you after fifteen
years, wouldn’t you have a cup of coffee?” I said. “Just out of curiosity?” “No,” she said. “I’d be afraid they’d
bring a gun.” My mother had a point. Richard had
reason to fear me. Our year and a half had ended in a melodramatic war
involving dueling exes, angry magazine editors, a dog with three mothers, and
a loony, cat-loving landlord; it was my own personal This was probably why I loved reading
gossip about famous people’s big messy public breakups. No matter how rich or
talented or smart you were, sex gone wrong could turn your life into an ugly
circus. It made me feel better knowing this transcended race, class, and
geography. Bad love was universal—the great leveler. Love gone right was quieter. I hadn’t
heard much about Richard in recent years. Just that he was married, had a
daughter, and wrote books in a ritzy suburb nearby. I left a message for him
on Sunday afternoon. By Sunday night I regretted it. Leaving a message for a
guy always made me jittery. I had to wait and see if it would be returned or
ignored. When I was single I’d never leave a guy I liked a phone message. I’d
call a hundred times, hanging up if he didn’t answer. (Luckily this was
before caller ID.) Liberated or not, you were still better off when a guy
called you—even after you were married. Richard had first called when I was
twenty-four, an editorial assistant at The New Yorker. He was a
divorced freelance journalist working on a biography of Bob Dylan. Knowing I
was a Dylan fanatic, a friend gave him my number. He invited me for a
home-cooked dinner. No straight guy had offered to cook me dinner before (or
since). I was impressed. I’d walked to his “Susan. Hi. Right on time,” he said.
“Come on in.” “Thanks.” I regretted not being late. He led me through a long hallway into
his living room. I was in awe—it was the nicest Village apartment I’d ever
seen, with exposed brick walls and original moldings at the edges of the
high ceilings. The built-in shelves, which must have been seven feet high,
were neatly stacked with thick books. I spotted Victor Navasky
and Bob Woodward; he was mostly nonfiction, all hardcover. “Someone else will be joining us
tonight,” he told me. “I hope you don’t mind.” I immediately feared a weird sexual
triangle, but when Richard opened a side door, a medium-sized mutt with white
and brown fur bounded out, jumping and barking. I hated dogs. “This is Oscar,” he said. “He wants you
to pet him.” Oscar sidled up to me, stuck his face
in my hand, and licked me. The dog was going to be a problem. I pulled away
and he barked. “Oscar likes you.” Richard looked me up
and down. “He’s got a thing for gorgeous brunettes.” By the time he finished giving me a
tour of his elegant railroad flat, I was falling for him. It ended in the
dining room, which had lace curtains and a French country table set for two
in the corner, his own Parisian bistro. Nice
seduction method—feed ‘em and luck ‘em. I might have been from “Tell me about your book,” I said,
sitting down. “Tell me about your work,” Richard
countered. “I checked out some back issues of Cosmo.” He uncorked a
bottle of red wine. “I loved your friend who just met the man she wanted to
father the children she didn’t want to have.” My first national publication; he’d
done his research. He poured a little wine into a fancy fluted crystal glass.
Then he handed it to me to taste, an act wasted on a diet soda doyenne, but I
went along, nodding. “You’ve done five ‘Outrageous Opinions’
in a row. Funniest stuff in the magazine,” he said. Uh-oh. He read all five. That meant he
knew about my therapy with Dr. G., my redheaded mother who sent pink angora
sweaters that shed, and the gory details of my last three psychotic breakups.
Nothing like being mysterious. I drank up while he brought out salad with
four shades of lettuce in a ceramic bowl. Oscar followed, then
sat at Richard’s feet. Good, I didn’t want the dog near me. “You should try my editor at Vogue. Leon
Booth. Use my name, Susan.” “Everyone calls me Sue.” I made a
mental note of Booth’s name. I’d heard that Vogue paid two dollars a
word. “I’d rather call you Susan,” he said. “What have you done for Vogue?” I
asked. “A bunch of celebrity interviews.” He
poured dressing on the salad. “Madonna, Bruce, and Mick.” Worse than name-dropping was first-name
dropping. I wondered if he really knew all those
famous musicians. I pointed to the series of framed Billy Joel records on the
wall. “What are those?” “Everything Billy touches turns to
gold. I used to work with him. Booking, promo. I got tired of being on the
road,” he said. “I’ve also profiled politicians, actors, and businessmen.” There was a door off the kitchen. To
the bedroom. That was convenient, though I preferred sex on an empty stomach.
I felt warm from the wine. I hadn’t eaten all day, just in case. I’d never
slept with a guy on a first date before. “You’re from “My dad knows him through a close
friend at Chrysler,” I said. I tried the salad—the dressing was too tangy. “Life magazine said they’d give me a cover.
But so far Iacocca hasn’t agreed.” “Let me know if you have trouble,” I
offered. “I might be able to help you with that one.” He cleared the table, returning with
bowls of flute-shaped pasta and salmon. I hated salmon. He held a copy of Playboy
magazine under his arm and opened it to a picture of himself with Billy
Joel. Underneath it read: “Journalist Richard Lacks worked in the music biz
for fifteen years.” He looked cute in the photo, but it was still a skin rag.
I expected him to leave it open to naked bunnies at a car wash. But he put it
away and refilled my glass. If he was trying
to get me drunk it was working. “Tell me about your book,” I said
again. “Let’s see.” He ran his fingers through
his hair. I wanted to run my fingers through it. “We signed a six-figure deal
with Simon & Schuster. My agent’s got the biggest balls in the business.” I wanted to hear about the intricacies
of the lyrics, not the deal. “An old boyfriend used to send me words to
Dylan’s said. “All tortured. I should have taken the hint.” “His songs don’t even touch the
surface.” “Tell, tell,” I said, as the dog
slipped over to my him and he wagged his tail. At
least Oscar was easy. “He makes up stories. You know his
famous motorcycle accident?” I nodded, of course I knew, I had been
obsessed with Dylan since I was fifteen. “I’m not so sure there really was a
motorcycle accident,” Richard said. “Really?” I didn’t believe it. “Tell me
more.” I took out a cigarette. He lit it. When he went to the kitchen I
picked out the salmon from my bowl and fed it to Oscar. Richard came out with
an ashtray, a chunk of cheese, and a grater. He scraped cheese on my pasta,
then on his. “He drove his first girlfriend mad.” “The one on the album cover?” He inched closer, took a cigarette from
my pack, and lit it ineptly, like someone who only smoked at parties. My
hands were sweating. “She was young. He seduced her, but he
was also sleeping with other women.” He put his arm around me and said, “When
she found out the truth she tried to kill herself. Her name was Susie.” I put out my cigarette. Only my parents
and Claire called me Susie. “How did you find out?” “She told me,” he said. “I can make
people relax and tell me everything.” “Is that so?” “Sometimes I think everyone’s just
waiting to spill their secrets.” “Writers are always selling someone
out, “ I quoted Joan Didion. “Two writers,” he smirked. “That means
our kids will be doctors.” I almost choked. He couldn’t know I
came from a family of doctors. My essay “The Disease Game” wouldn’t be out
in Cosmo until next month. Why did he think I wanted children? “That was why my marriage didn’t work.
My wife decided she didn’t want kids,” he said. “I lived with another woman,
Sally, for two years, but she couldn’t have any.” The friend who had fixed us up wasn’t
sure if Richard was through with her. “When did you end it?” “A few months ago,” he said. “It was a
bad breakup. Sally’s a little crazy.” A lot of women were going crazy around
here. I thought of my colleague Monica’s warning: Listen carefully to what a
man says about his exes, since you might soon be one of them. She’d also
said, “Stay away from biographers. They leech on other people’s lives.” She
had been single at the time and I thought she was jealous that I was going
on a blind date with someone who sounded so successful. “Do you want kids?” he asked. I finished my wine. “I’d rather have
books.” “Can’t you have both, Susan?” He moved
closer, stared into my eyes. “Not before dessert,” I said, feeling
tipsy and gorgeous. He smiled and went back to the kitchen
for fresh raspberries and cream, which he served in two crystal glasses. They
looked gorgeous too. Boy, this guy had a lot of crystal. He put on Blood
on the Tracks. I waited for him to seduce me and dump me like Dylan did
to that other Susie. “Listen, I’m on deadline now,” he said.
“I hope you won’t mind making it an early night.” “Not
at all,” I lied, looking at my watch. It was nine thirty. I felt rejected.
The only guy I’d ever wanted to sleep with on a first date didn’t want to
sleep with me. “I have to walk Oscar,” he said. “Can
we escort you home?” Or maybe he did. “First tell me something juicy,” I
said. “What’s Dylan like deep down? A genius or a drifter? Is he just
insecure?” “It’s hard to figure out. He’s created
a mythology about his life. There’s a lot of conflicting stories.” Richard
picked up a raspberry and fed it to me. Then he moved closer. “A real
sociopath,” he whispered in my ear. Readers
of memoirs expect a degree of self-absorption from the author, and Shapiro
doesn’t disappoint. For some readers, her ego and the details of her life
will distract and disappoint. For those readers who love to eavesdrop on
relationships and hear all the dirt about “he said, she said,” will find fine
reading in Five Men
Who Broke My Heart. Steve
Hopkins, September 25, 2004 |
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ã 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the October 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Five
Men Who Broke My Heart.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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