About the Book

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Katie Roiphe’s stimulating work has made her one of the
most talked about cultural critics of her generation. Now this
bracing young writer delves deeply into one of the most layered of
subjects: marriage. Drawn in part from the private memoirs,
personal correspondence, and long-forgotten journals of the British
literary community from 1910 to the Second World War, here are
seven “marriages à la mode”—each rising to
the challenge of intimate relations in more or less creative ways.
Jane Wells, the wife of H.G., remained his rock, despite his
decade-long relationship with Rebecca West (among others).
Katherine Mansfield had an irresponsible, childlike romance with
her husband, John Middleton Murry, that collapsed under the strain
of real-life problems. Vera Brittain and George Gordon Catlin spent
years in a “semidetached” marriage (he in America, she
in England). Vanessa Bell maintained a complicated harmony with the
painter Duncan Grant, whom she loved, and her husband, Clive. And
her sister Virginia Woolf, herself no stranger to marital
particularities, sustained a brilliant running commentary on the
most intimate details of those around her.

Every chapter revolves around a crisis that occurred in each of
these marriages—as serious as life-threatening illness or as
seemingly innocuous as a slightly tipsy dinner table
conversation—and how it was resolved…or not resolved.
In these portraits, Roiphe brilliantly evokes what are, as she
says, “the fluctuations and shifts in attraction, the
mysteries of lasting affection, the endurance and changes in love,
and the role of friendship in marriage.” The deeper mysteries
at stake in all relationships.

UNCOMMON ARRANGEMENTS © Copyright 2011 by Katie Roiphe.
Reprinted with permission by The Dial Press. All rights
reserved.

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