No Cheating, No Dying: I Had a Good Marriage. Then I Tried To Make It Better.
Deciding that the laissez-faire if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it adage shouldn’t apply to marriage, Weil set out to improve her own, a marriage that she and most people she knew considered an ideal one. For one year, Weil and her husband—fellow writer, coparticipant in what they long ago named their whole life creative act of writing and creating and raising a family, and colossally good sport—Daniel Duane, visit therapists, attend seminars and hippie-dippie workshops, and seek out financial counsel, knowing full well that they might scare out some snakes. Weil, whose 2009 New York Times Magazine story Married (Happily) with Issues forms the basis for the book, approaches this creative act with unfaltering self-awareness, and this is what makes her pursuit so successful and readable. Indeed, the author’s own surprise at what she finds when rooting around the depths of her union translates to moments of unanticipated beauty on the printed page. The best kind of popular-psychology title, probing without proposing self-help, this book will appeal to a broad range of readers and start conversations among them. --Annie Bostrom