Under the Covers

"Invite the bitch to dinner" is one wickedly brash survival strategy in The Other Woman: Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal, edited by Victoria Zackheim (Warner). Among the star turns in this unusually frank and furious collection of essays are Pam Houston's "Not Istanbul," a hypothetical journey into an impossibly complicated relationship ("Here's the thing about the other woman. She lives inside your head") and Connie May Fowler's "The Uterine Blues," a savory bit of rancor from a woman scorned.