Odd Woman Out: Exposure in Essays and Stories

Trying to crawl inside the television set to get her parents’ attention, but blocked by the tubes and wires, she went the long way around to get herself seen onscreen. In thirty-five stand alone essays and stories comprising a very late in life love story, a person who feels fictitious learns to become real from the roles she plays. Chartoff exposes her artistry and love blunders in her hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful memoir Odd Woman Out. From her 1950s childhood in a suburb she describes as an “abusement park” to performing Moliere on Broadway, to voicing characters on the popular Rugrats cartoon series, Melanie Chartoff was anxious “out of character,” preferring any imaginary world to her real one. Obsessed with exploring her talent, fame came as a destabilizing byproduct. Suppressing a spiritual breakdown while co-starring on a late-night comedy show, Chartoff grew alienated. Given a private audience with a guru, she finally hears her inner voice, ’70s soul singer Barry White, crooning, “Get out, baby!” All the while, she’s courted by men with homing pigeons and Priuses, idealized by guys who want the girl du jour from TV to be their baby rearer or kidney donor. Go backstage on Broadway, behind the scenes on network television, and inside the complicated psyche of a performer struggling in the role of a complete human. ITrying to crawl inside the television set to get her parents’ attention, but blocked by the tubes and wires, she went the long way around to get herself seen onscreen. In 35 stand alone essays and stories comprising a better-late-than -never love story, a person who feels fictitious learns to become real from the roles she plays. Chartoff exposes her artistry and love blunders in her hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful memoir Odd Woman Out. From her 1950s childhood in a suburb she describes as an “abusement park” to performing Moliere on Broadway, to voicing characters on the popular Rugrats cartoon series, Melanie Chartoff was anxious “out of character,” preferring any imaginary world to her real one. Obsessed with exploring her talent, fame came as a destabilizing byproduct. Suppressing a spiritual breakdown while co-starring on a late-night comedy show, Chartoff grew alienated. Given a private audience with a guru, she finally hears her inner voice, ’70s soul singer Barry White, crooning, “Get out, baby!” All the while, she’s courted by men with homing pigeons and Priuses, idealized by guys who want the girl du jour from TV to be their baby rearer or kidney donor. Go backstage on Broadway, behind the scenes on network television, and inside the complicated psyche of a performer struggling in the role of a complete human. Odd Woman Out intimately exposes the nature of identity in the life of a performing artist, snapshotting the hopeful search for a self Chartoff could love and someone else’s self to love, too.