Life Preservers: Staying Afloat in Love and Life

This collection of letters and replies, some of which were previously published in the author's New Woman magazine column (""Harriet Lerner's Good Advice""), covers many issues. Lerner (The Dance of Deception) offers advice to women on love, friendship, marriage, parenting and sexual politics. Her warm, conversational style is engaging and meshes well with her commonsense approach to problem solving. Lerner advises women that many emotional problems between people spring from a lack of communication, and that differences must be faced before they can be solved. A self-described feminist, Lerner is pro-choice and believes that same-sex love is as ""normal"" as heterosexuality. Despite the format, which dictates short answers to broad questions, the author provides thoughtful comments geared to helping women surmount their difficulties. Author tour. (May)