Synopses & Reviews
Acclaimed author Lauren Slater ruminates on what it means to be family.
Lauren Slater’s rocky childhood left her cold to the idea of ever creating a family of her own, but a husband, two dogs, two children, and three houses later, she came around to the challenges, trials, and unexpected rewards of playing house. Boldly honest, these biographical pieces reveal Slater at her wittiest and most deeply personal. She describes her journey from fiercely independent young woman to wife and mother, all while coping with mental illness. She tells of a chemical fire that rekindled the flame in her ailing relationship with her husband; she reflects on her decision to have an abortion, and then later to have children despite suffering from severe depression; she examines sex, love, mastectomies, and how nannies can be intrusive while dogs become family. Beautifully written, often humorous, and always revealing, these stories scrutinize the complex questions surrounding family life, offering up sometimes uncomfortable truths.
Synopsis
Lauren Slater is a psychologist and writer. She is the author of seven books, including The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals, Welcome to My Country, Prozac Diaries, and Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. Slater lives with her husband, two children, and many animals in Harvard, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface xi
1 Tripp Lake 1
2 Going Solo 12
3 Paired 16
4 On Fire 24
5 Uncurling 32
6 My Life as a Father 37
7 Isosceles 46
8 Squared Off 57
9 The Other Mother 65
10 The Suit 82
11 Bilateral 89
12 Zyprexa 96
13 Shame 104
14 Sex: In Three Positions 115
15 Tongue and Groove 130
16 Boneyard 142
17 Dolled Up 156
18 The Mud Is in My Mouth 173
Acknowledgments 189
Lauren Slater on PowellsBooks.Blog
I live in a city in the grip of opiates. Shady-looking men in ragged clothes selling on street corners in the dark, always in the dark. Teenagers with a glaze over their eyes. First responders carrying around cans of Narcan and billboards advertising the opioid antagonist to common citizens as well. Politicians within my city and well beyond it promise to “clean up” the streets...
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