Foreverland
On the Divine Tedium of Marriage
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
“One of the first honest, moving and funny portrayals of a solid marriage I have ever read.” —Jessica Grose, The New York Times
A Best Book of 2022 from The New Yorker and Chicago Tribune
An illuminating, poignant, and savagely funny examination of modern marriage from Ask Polly advice columnist Heather Havrilesky
If falling in love is the peak of human experience, then marriage is the slow descent down that mountain, on a trail built from conflict, compromise, and nagging doubts. Considering the limited economic advantages to marriage, the deluge of other mate options a swipe away, and the fact that almost half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce anyway, why do so many of us still chain ourselves to one human being for life?
In Foreverland, Heather Havrilesky illustrates the delights, aggravations, and sublime calamities of her marriage over the span of fifteen years, charting an unpredictable course from meeting her one true love to slowly learning just how much energy is required to keep that love aflame. This refreshingly honest portrait of a marriage reveals that our relationships are not simply “happy” or “unhappy,” but something much murkier—at once unsavory, taxing, and deeply satisfying. With tales of fumbled proposals, harrowing suburban migrations, external temptations, and the bewildering insults of growing older, Foreverland is a work of rare candor and insight. Havrilesky traces a path from daydreaming about forever for the first time to understanding what a tedious, glorious drag forever can be.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this brutally honest memoir of her marriage, advice columnist Heather Havrilesky tends to present herself in the worst possible light: socially awkward, caustically judgmental, sometimes just plain mean. (She literally reminds us “I’m the villain of this story.”) Truth be told, Havrilesky’s just as hard on her university professor husband. (“When Bill sneezes, it’s like a blast from an air horn aimed at your face.”) She even questions the very concept of marriage, which she repeatedly describes as being stuck with one deeply annoying person until one of you dies. Thankfully, Havrilesky is a talented writer who transforms this litany of woes into genuinely hilarious stories of “the divine tedium” of marriage and motherhood. Her talent for storytelling, as well as her endearing, self-effacing honesty about her own foibles, makes Foreverland insightful and fun. After reading this, you’ll definitely feel more kindly toward your own partner—or happier about being alone.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Havrilesky (What If This Were Enough?), New York magazine's former advice columnist, considers the beauty and monotony of matrimony and family building in this deliciously sardonic memoir. While she writes movingly about her love for her husband, Bill, more poignant are her darkly funny ruminations on the way that "the world's most impossible endurance challenge" can put even the strongest relationships on trial. "Being married is far more interesting than falling in love," she writes. "Agony in a half-open, half-empty cereal box. Longing in a badly washed dish. Slow evolution, or a slow unraveling: it can be hard to tell which." With acerbic humor and keen wit, Havrilesky explores the complicated emotions associated with major milestones in her life—describing the decision to get married as "a culmination of every wrongheaded notion you've ever had" and her baby's birth by C-section as "rummage around in my open belly like... a cabinet jam-packed with heavy sports equipment." No matter the joke or metaphor, palpable within each story is her love for her family—including her "snoring heap of meat" husband—and the friends who've helped her along the way. Havrilesky's candid reflections will delight those who've taken the plunge, for better or for worse.
