Committed

________________ 'Like Eat, Pray, Love, her follow-up ... feels irresistibly confessional ... I found myself guzzling Committed, reading it in mighty chunks, far into the night. Whenever I put it down, it was pinched by my mother or sister' - Sunday Times ‘An unblinkered consideration of what marriage really means' - Woman & Home 'Gilbert delves deep into the history and cultural meanings of marriage, as well as into her own relationship' - Financial Times ‘Insightful ... She speaks for many who question the bliss in conjugal bonds, or, at least, those who want to understand how the tradition still perpetuates. For better or worse' - Vogue ________________ At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe - a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married (Both survivors of difficult divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, who - after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing - gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving completely into this topic, trying with all her might to discover (through historical research, interviews and much personal reflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. The result is Committed - a witty and intelligent contemplation of marriage that debunks myths, unthreads fears and suggests that sometimes even the most romantic of souls must trade in her amorous fantasies for the humbling responsibility of adulthood. Gilbert's memoir - destined to become a cherished handbook for any thinking person hovering on the verge of marriage - is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.

________________ 'Like Eat, Pray, Love, her follow-up ... feels irresistibly confessional ... I found myself guzzling Committed, reading it in mighty chunks, far into the night. Whenever I put it down, it was pinched by my mother or sister' - Sunday Times ‘An unblinkered consideration of what marriage really means' - Woman & Home 'Gilbert delves deep into the history and cultural meanings of marriage, as well as into her own relationship' - Financial Times ‘Insightful ... She speaks for many who question the bliss in conjugal bonds, or, at least, those who want to understand how the tradition still perpetuates. For better or worse' - Vogue ________________ At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe - a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married (Both survivors of difficult divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, who - after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing - gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving completely into this topic, trying with all her might to discover (through historical research, interviews and much personal reflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. The result is Committed - a witty and intelligent contemplation of marriage that debunks myths, unthreads fears and suggests that sometimes even the most romantic of souls must trade in her amorous fantasies for the humbling responsibility of adulthood. Gilbert's memoir - destined to become a cherished handbook for any thinking person hovering on the verge of marriage - is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.

A raw and masterful memoir about becoming a woman and going mad--and doing both at once. When Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s, grieving the loss of her mother--feeling untethered and swimming through inarticulable pain--she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. After nearly three years and countless experimental treatments, Suzanne left the ward on shaky legs. In the decades it took her to recover from the experience, Suzanne came to understand her suffering as part of something larger: a long tradition of women whose complicated and compromised stories of self-actualization are reduced to "crazy chick" and "madwoman" narratives. It was a thrilling discovery, and she searched for more books, more woman writers, as the journey of her life converged with her journey through the literature that shaped her. Transporting, honest, and graceful, Committed is a story of discovery and recovery, reclaiming the idea of the madwoman as a template for insight and transcendence through the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Janet Frame, Audre Lorde, Shulamith Firestone, and others.

A raw and masterful memoir about becoming a woman and going mad--and doing both at once. When Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s, grieving the loss of her mother--feeling untethered and swimming through inarticulable pain--she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. After nearly three years and countless experimental treatments, Suzanne left the ward on shaky legs. In the decades it took her to recover from the experience, Suzanne came to understand her suffering as part of something larger: a long tradition of women whose complicated and compromised stories of self-actualization are reduced to "crazy chick" and "madwoman" narratives. It was a thrilling discovery, and she searched for more books, more woman writers, as the journey of her life converged with her journey through the literature that shaped her. Transporting, honest, and graceful, Committed is a story of discovery and recovery, reclaiming the idea of the madwoman as a template for insight and transcendence through the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Janet Frame, Audre Lorde, Shulamith Firestone, and others.