Each of the contributors to this thought-provoking collection has terrific stories and wisdom to share, and they all do it masterfully. "Nobody is a perfect match and we have to accept that," writes Marge Piercy...NPR reporter Maria Hinojosa says, "I stay married because this is the one person who understands how to help make me into a better person. "You might not agree with everyone's theories–Hannah Pine defends her choice to be a mother in an open marriage–but each one deals with the real problems, and pleasures, of marriage. As editor Trounstine puts it: "[m]arriage doesn't have the excitement of the illicit or the thrill of the daredevil. It's more like the quiet hum of the everyday and the occasional surprise of the sunset."
--Publishers Weekly
"Another relationship anthology? Yep. But if you seek to understand marriage- your own; someone else's- don't skip it. Hope, intimacy, resolve, and other key ingredients that cement marital bonds shimmer purposely off its pages. Collectively, these writers will make you melt."
––Tango
Refreshingly honest accounts of long-term relationships by some of our favorite authors, including Julia Alvarez, Susan Cheever, Diana Abu-Jaber, Erica Jong, Bharati Mukherjee, ZZ Packer and Marge Piercy.
--Ms. Magazine
It's natural to wonder what goes on behind closed doors in people's marriages. Now 24 women, including novelists Anne Bernays, Julia Alvarez, Bharati Mukherjee, and Erica Jong, tell us... The book opens with the longest marriage (Bernays's, at 50 years) and ends with the shortest (Nell Casey's, at one year). In between are two same-sex marriages and an open marriage in which a woman is having an affair with the husband of her husband's lover. With its artful honesty, Bernays's essay is among the best of the bunch. ''For years I suffered from the psoriasis of envy," she writes about her husband, Justin Kaplan, whose books are more acclaimed than hers.
With half of marriages ending in divorce, the women who are children of divorce, like Casey, work extra hard to get it right. ''We each inherit our own legacy of marriage, defining ourselves with or against our own parents' marriage," she writes....This collection offers signs of progress, like Eve LaPlante's husband, who does all the cooking for their family. Jong... heralds a new tradition: ''Burning the prenup has become the commitment 'I do' was for our grandparents," she writes. Co-editor Jean Trounstine, in the 16th year of her second marriage, admits that while being married entails endless annoyances, it has the potential to make us better people. ''It challenges us beyond what we can imagine, [urging] us to hold on, to bear up, to learn."
--Jan Gardner, The Boston Globe
"These stories are frank and powerful, packing the punch of true confessions. Propps' own piece, on learning to live with a husband prone to verbal abuse and finally summoning the courage to speak up for herself, is alone worth the price of admission."
--The Hartford Courant
Karen Propp and Jean Trounstine have put together a superb collection that should be required reading for anyone who is married, thinking about it or swearing they'll never take the plunge.
--Debby Waldman, The Edmonton Journal
. . .24 women probe their marriages with humor and compassion, and 24 "whys" are hinted at. . . . Why are they still married - love? Commitment? Children? Security? Companionship? To be able to use the first-person plural? Yes to all that, but also maybe something as seemingly simple as Eve LaPlante's successful search for a man she'd like to chat with over breakfast for 50 years. By her reckoning, that's 18,260 breakfasts. Seems as good a reason as any.
--Judith Long, Newsday
Funny, passionate, fresh and insightful, the essays capture the essence of what it means to be committed to another person “as long as you both shall live.”. . .Reading these intensely personal, refreshingly honest essays feels like eavesdropping on the intimate lives of 24 diverse couples. The end result is a hopeful affirmation of the long-standing institution of marriage and why it still works for so many couples.
--Laurie Smith Anderson, The Advocate, Baton Rouge
. . . I'd never call this book sweet. I would call it funny, sad, hopeful and honest. Oh, and instructive, and not just for newlyweds…. If you think only oldlyweds have enough experience to dispense wisdom, here comes the relatively newly wed ZZ Packer to prove you wrong: "Most of our fights are really only squabbles, when you look closely, and most of our squabbles are but petty grievances. When we compare those grievances with the utter lack in our lives without each other, we recognize just how petty we're being."
--Jann Malone, Richmond Times-Dispatch
. . . You're bound to find a sympathetic voice in this satisfying collection of essays by a wide range of women writers, who describe their marriages, both good and bad, in ways readers will undoubtedly recognize with a laugh, grimace or tear. The writers pose questions about marriage that you may never have considered (Will I like my husband's lover?) and others that may be on your lips all too often (Will it last?). Susan Cheever's "Mrs. Married Person" recounts her three trips to the altar. "It's delicious to be so intimate with someone that you can report on whether or not the dry cleaning was delivered or whether you are grilling fish for dinner, and they're actually interested." But she ends
on a more wistful note. "If, at the age of 23, I could have seen the world with the wiser eyes and more tolerant heart of the 60-year-old I now am, my life would have been very different." Why I'm Still Married manages to include every permutation of marriage. . . the writing soars.
--Ottowa Citizen
. . . offers a passionate glimpse into how many thoughtful, feminist women view their marriages.
--The Daily Camera
“How do couples address, and rebel against, traditional gender roles? How do women address the occasional (or frequent) apathy they feel toward spouse and children? How do we address our envy/ anger/ disappointment/ fear/ suspicion that our partners "have it all" with such ease, while we struggle in a sexist world? Now Karen Propp and Jean Trounstine have edited a collection of twenty-four essays, in which women discuss "why I'm still married." .. . Sounds like a must-read for feminists struggling to define themselves within a relationship, to hold onto the selves that existed without, and to have something worth hanging onto afterward.”
--Bad Feminist
"What relevance does the ancient practice of marriage–complicated by politics, economics, religion, and social mores across cultures and ages–have for 21st-century women? Why do we still marry when the majority of people who have ever done so are divorced? What does marriage mean when legalizing it for same-sex couples becomes a defining moral and political struggle? Women's activists Propp and Trounstine approached 24 best-selling women writers to contribute personal takes on this most socially packed yet intimate of relationships. The result is a brave, thoughtful, provocative, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny (rather like a good marriage) collection. Anne Bernays waxes affable in her brief, affectionate review of her 50-year marriage, a warmth echoed in many of the essays. Bharati Mukherjee and Maria Hinojosa situate their marriages in–or against–familial cultures highly opinionated on the matter of matrimony….Love, romance, huge fights, daily annoyances, sex sublime and ordinary, illness, children, family and friends, embarrassing bad habits, and–of course–the division of labor all come up for exploration in this affirming and delightful collection. "
--Library Journal
"This book is a must-read. I loved it. And I have no doubt that every
woman will find something of herself in these pages."
--Marlo Thomas
"Writing with astonishing honesty and refreshing clarity, the 24 authors in this revelatory collection offer readers the unusual pleasure of looking inside other people's marriages to see what we can find there, emerging with signposts and warnings, enlightenment and benediction."
--Carolyn Parkhurst, author of Dogs of Babel
"This book charts the vicissitudes of marriage with an honesty that is rarely brought to a topic as private as this. To read it is to enlarge one's sense of what is possible in long term love. Why I’m Still Married is hopeful, provocative, challenging, and always eloquent."
--Lauren Slater, author of Prozac Diary
"Enduring marriages, it has been said, operate on rules known only to the partners. In this ground-breaking collection, 24 generous and honest women reveal secret truths about the ground rules of their most intimate interactions. You will be amazed at what you learn about your own experience."
--Suzanne Braun Levine, author of Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood
"This risky, quirky, from-the-heart collection explores some of the reasons why so many of us, still, choose to live with the ever-evolving social structure known as marriage…should be required reading for anyone considering–or actively living–the plunge."
A. Manette Ansay, author of Midnight Champagne and Vinegar Hill
