Tough Girls Don't Knit and Other Tales of Stylish Subversions

Esther Fisher is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and
a former food critic for The Globe & Mail.

Tough girls (i.e., American women) don’t knit because “it’s
neither chic, smart, nor youthful,” says Garmaise, a former cbc
broadcaster who was once a journalist for the Montreal Star. Most of the
topics these light essays discuss would have been known, before
feminism, as “girl talk.” Still, regardless of what we call it, it
is alive and well: the delight most women share in comparing notes on
shoulder pads, fashions in breasts, bathing suits, lingerie (very
“in” at present), hair styles and hair coloring, waxing, and
shopping (particularly at discount stores and outlet malls). Garmaise is
“in the know” about this trivia. She is also a self-styled expert on
men (philanderers, husbands, and lovers, both current and ex), the
“other woman,” children and step children, and the trauma of broken
hearts, separations, and divorces.

Her essays are generally witty and entertaining, and often original,
such as her idea of possessing one’s own “dream man” simply by
buying a video of a male star and spending time with him whenever
desired. As well, Garmaise pokes fun as much at herself as at her
favorite butts—such as conformity as exemplified by Joan Collins or
Nancy Reagan, for example.

However, reading the 50 or so essays in long stretches can be wearying.
After a while, even Garmaise’s iconoclastic humor and her irreverence
for currently accepted views (such as the benefits of diet, exercise,
yoga, and cosmetic surgery) and for such establishment members as
Barbara Bush and Margaret Thatcher, begins to pall. Moreover, many of
the names she drops (and there are plenty) are meaningless unless the
reader is familiar with a great many celebrities. Who, for example, is
Mimi Rogers, or Aaron Spelling? And does anyone really care about John
Fairchild, publisher of Women’s Wear Daily, or about Bob Pittman,
president of Quantum Media, which produced The Morton Downey Show? Also,
much of this book deals with events, people, and even locations (such as
the fish counter at Zabar’s in New York) so topical that some of the
essays are already dated.

Yuppies will likely gobble up the gossip Garmaise relays in her breezy,
chatty tone. For the rest of us, the book provides some chuckles and
nods of recognition as we encounter many of our own idiosyncracies. And
for posterity, the book, like a midden heap, may provide some
interesting social history about the 1990s.