THE FEMALE education — both academic and practical — is a theme that Wasserstein has explored at length in her plays. And in her new book, she fittingly synthesizes the several eras and styles of feminism through which she has lived. The 235-page Shiksa Goddess, which consists almost entirely of previously published essays, is something of an odd mix at first glance — equal parts chick-lit author Lucinda Rosenfeld, family-woman columnist Anna Quindlen, and lipstick feminist Naomi Wolf. In the book, as in her life, Wasserstein seems inadvertently to provide a model for modern feminism, teasing in a little glam with the go, girl, a little traditionalism with the defiant one-track careerism. Clucking over her iconoclastic mother Lola, a dancer who fancies leather pants, Wasserstein defiantly admits that “women can be the absolute worst,” and stomps her foot in protest at being constantly thought “nice.” Yet Wasserstein comes off as just that, and also something more — warm and honest, unassuming and modest. She’s the quirky, cool aunt you always wished were your mom.

Taken together, the 35 essays in Wasserstein’s new book capture the shifting reality of her 40s. It includes a political-arts agenda; a humorous parody of Joan and Melissa Rivers’s silly E! TV fashion criticism as they salivate over the contents of first ladies’ closets; a respectful obituary of Martha Entenmann, pioneer of the see-through bakery box; and a chiding op-ed criticizing Hillary for standing by her man. Most striking, however, are the last two essays, in which Wasserstein shares the stories of her sister’s breast cancer, her own ordeal with fertility treatments, and her daughter’s difficult birth. Here, Wasserstein does the most terrifying and exhilarating turn of all: she bares herself completely. “I think about this book and I said, ‘This is somewhat revealing,’” Wasserstein jokes. “It’s odd, because I’m a bit of a shy person.” She nods. “Yeah! I am.”

Humor plays a large part in Shiksa Goddess, as it has in the past 10 years of her life. “When I realized when my daughter was in that intensive-care unit, or even when I was there for three weeks with preeclampsia, when I look back, I can’t imagine how I did that,” Wasserstein says soberly. “I mean, that’s truly terrifying. I really thought, you know, this is the Passover plagues. The only way I could actually get through it was with humor.” In “Days of Awe: The Birth of Lucy Jane,” Wasserstein calls hospital life “a non-stop meet-and-greet.” After being prodded, poked, and forced to lie on her left side, she gives up all hope of being voted “Miss Mount Sinai Congeniality.” And when she finally leaves with her healthy baby and finds herself congratulated by strangers on the street, Wasserstein describes the experience as “the millennial version of It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Wasserstein’s favorite essay in the new collection, however, is “Jill’s Adventures in Real Estate,” a short comic play she wrote about a woman who drags herself through more than 2000 apartments, gets blacklisted by brokers, and finally just settles into the Y at 96th and Lex. “I mean, really, my picture was up in so many real-estate agencies,” Wasserstein says, grinning devilishly. “Really, really ... wanted,” she says, pantomiming a Wild West outlaw poster. “It took me, like, a year, and I brought every single friend of mine. I’d bring all of these male friends and these real-estate agents would say, ‘You have so many husbands. I’ve never met anyone like you.’ It was crazy.”

Though she’s quick to laugh about her aversion to real-estate commitment or the thought of Melissa Rivers getting “so excited” about Elizabeth Dole’s Dana Buchman suits, Wasserstein sobers up when talking about the responsibility of women in the public eye. Most notably, she came down hard on Hillary Clinton in “Hillary Clinton’s Muddled Legacy,” which was originally published in the New York Times in August 1998. “Now the impressive personal qualities — idealism, strength, and poise under pressure — that she once directed toward influencing social policy are being used to maintain domestic tranquility.... The name Hillary Rodham Clinton no longer stands for self-determination, but for the loyal betrayed wife,” Wasserstein writes. Now, three years later, she explains her disappointment with the new senator: “She just seems symbolic in a way, and someone who’s clearly intelligent, but you almost want to say, ‘Will this real person please stand up? Whoever you are.’”

One look at her own activism and it’s clear why Wasserstein’s so disheartened with Clinton’s misuse of the spotlight. For example, in 1989, Wasserstein used her name to introduce underprivileged inner-city students to Broadway theater: after securing funding from the nonprofit Theatre Development Fund, she accompanied eight students from the DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx to seven matinee productions, hashing out the finer points over post-production slices of pizza. Not only has Wasserstein kept in touch with the original eight students; the program has continued, led by various other theater-world honchos, including former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich, a close friend. “These kids want to meet art,” she says. “Most of these kids said, ‘I didn’t want to go to the theater. I thought it was for rich white people.’” But after seeing many of the plays and musicals, she says proudly, “they loved it.”

GATHERING TOGETHER and publishing all these tales of drama, politics, humor, birth, and death has been cathartic for Wasserstein. In effect, she’s closed the book on a difficult decade and started a new chapter. Her next play, she muses, will most likely be about her mother. “My daughter really makes me want to write about my mother, so she’ll have it, so she’ll know,” she explains. And Wasserstein’s also toying with the idea of an essay on her recent significant weight loss — something like “I’d Rather Be Fat,” she muses. “You know, if you lose a lot of weight, all these people stop you on the street and say, ‘You look great. Are you all right?’” She snickers. “A friend of mine called another and said, ‘How did she do that?’ Like I slipped away.” But then she stops laughing and says seriously, “You know, it was that Lucy’s doctor told me if you’re going to have a baby this late in life, you’re going to have to [make life changes]. And I thought ... there you go.”

For all the congratulatory pats on the back for her bold choices, Wasserstein — who jokingly dubs herself “Miss I-wanna-get-on-a-plane” — is still struggling with her recent mommy makeover. “Sometimes I think of myself and I think, I have a baby, and I’m a single mother, and I’ve lost weight, and I don’t live in a hotel, and these things that were so hard for me have sort of fallen into place,” she marvels. “And then you move on, I think, to the other things that are so hard for you. But what’s so hard about this is that I keep thinking that other people did all of this when they were 30. They lived at home and had babies and they groomed themselves. You, Miss Late Bloomer, why did you wait until you were 50?”

“There are those people who have children who will say to you, ‘Isn’t it the best!?’” she adds, squealing. “You know, these people, at two in the morning, when their child has a temperature of 104 and she’s screaming — are they sitting there saying, ‘Oooohh, it’s the best!’? I mean, what I’ve found is that it’s the deepest. It’s the realest.”

Nina Willdorf can be reached at nwilldorf[a]phx.com.