The Happily Ever After: A Memoir of an Unlikely Romance Novelist

Journalist and humorist Steinberg (The Lost Book of Mormon) documents his plunge into the world of romance writing in this wittily observed account. After a painful divorce, Steinberg looked to romance novels with the hope of discovering “rules” to apply to his own relationships. Despite the “romance-phobia” inculcated in him as a “brain-washed lit major,” Steinberg plunges in, attending romance conventions and joining a writing group to develop his romance chops and write a novel of his own. Steinberg’s romp through “the vast empire of Romancelandia” yields sharp insights into the genre’s influences—he finds a gothic subtext to much romance, from Northanger Abbey to Fifty Shades of Grey—and sometimes surprising observations about its gender dynamic. He finds, for instance, that romance novels currently “tend toward a more openly progressive and even radical feminism.” He also develops an admiration for the genre’s devoted and demanding readership, “people deciding, on their own, what their stories mean to them,” as he finishes his own romance novel (under the nom de plume Dana Becker). Appropriately, a real-life romance also figures into the narrative. Aspiring writers will appreciate the tips from an outsider who broke in, and romance novels and memoir fans will be pleased that this winning book concludes with Steinberg achieving his own happily-ever-after. (Aug.)