NONFICTION - Oct. 6, 1991

JUGGLING by Faye J. Crosby (The Free Press: $22.95; 203 pp.). The punch line here is that the very women this book is about will undoubtedly not have the time to read it. Crosby, of Smith College’s psychology department, is writing about what she and Redbook magazine call “jugglers”--women who try to strike a balance among being a parent, a wife and/or a member of the work force. She puts forth a seductive notion, which is that trying to do more than one thing at the same time is actually good for you, that enforced polyphasic behavior sharpens, not dulls, performance. And she backs it up with a frank appraisal of the literature she has reviewed, as well as her own research, including a measured section on why most men still fail to keep up their end of the domestic bargain.

Still, it’s hard not to read this book without a slight rise in blood pressure. There’s something about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear here. As long as women have to juggle, either because of an economic imperative or because they want a career, only to find that their husbands can’t figure out which end of a dust cloth is up, they need to find an advantage to their predicament so they don’t get surly. The fact that only women are doing too many things at once, whatever the theoretical benefits are, ought to tell you something.