Vendor
	Fritz Agency Christian Dittus
Original language
English

FOREVERLAND

Heather Havrilesky

On the Divine Tedium of Marriage

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.

Heather Havrilesky writes the popular Ask Polly advice column on Substack and is the author of What If This Were Enough?, How to Be a Person in the World, and Disaster Preparedness. She has written for the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, and NPR's All Things Considered, among others, and also maintains the Ask Molly newsletter, written by Polly's evil twin.

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Book Published 2022-02-01 by Ecco Press

Comments

'Foreverland' explores the mundane, infuriating and hilarious moments of marriage Read more...

"Havrilesky's candid reflections will delight those who've taken the plunge, for better or for worse."

"Heather Havrilesky's Foreverland is full of razor-sharp, big-hearted wisdom about conflict, lust, obsession, parenting, road trips, daily survival, and the saving, terrifying power of honesty. Her willingness to behold the frustrations of intimacy is what makes herultimatelysuch a keen and necessary scribe of its grace. I want to share this book with my exes, my mother, my partner, future versions of my daughter, future versions of myself, and every last reader I could shake by the shoulders and say: You might not know it, but you need this. It will help you survive your own life." -- Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Recovering The inner workings of other people's relationships are usually cloaked in mystery and papered over with platitudes. By letting us closely observe her fifteen-year marriagenose-hair trimmers, random crushes, warts, and allHeather makes us all feel less alone in our own weird and wonderful partnerships. There's something so refreshing about a book that doesn't try to convince you to invest in your marriage, and instead describes how difficult it is to do exactly that. I laughed. I cried. I didn't file for divorce. -- Ann Friedman, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Big Friendship In a time of carefully managed, painstakingly cropped, plastic Instagram families, Heather Havrilesky's incisive examination of marriage and family, Foreverland, reads, refreshingly, like a war diarya generously candid, disarmingly heartfelt examination of those we love, what we value, and why. Occasionally meditative, brutally insightful, effortlessly witty, and always honest, Heather Havrilesky should be a household name, a guru for those of us whose hair itches at the thought of gurus. -- Lauren Hough, New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing

"Both married and unmarried audiences will find something to cherish in this book on what it means to have a good marriage, what a marriage is at all, and how to retain one's identity, as well as desires, in the face of binding yourself to another."

"Newlyweds, nearlyweds, and golden-anniversary celebrants alike will find much that is familiar, inspiring, and comforting in Havrilesky's clear-eyed paean to marital bliss and blunders." (starred review)

"Havrilesky successfully provides ample opportunities for readers to laugh, commiserate, and critique, regardless of their phase in life or marital status."