Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage

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[ing] 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. Agent: Sarah Burnes, the Gernert Co. (Feb.)