To Hell with All That

Read an Excerpt

The Virgin Bride
I do not plan to have another wedding; I'm standing pat at two. But I must confess that after spending a pleasant hour gazing at the photographs in a recent crop of wedding guides, I began to feel a bit of the old itch.

The Virgin Bride, Part 2
Genuine tradition is not for sale, because no one needs to buy it; it's moored in the customs of one's own family (remember them?). If Dad feels like a complete chump in his Sir Elegance tux, you've just learned something about your tradition.

From Caitlin Flanagan, The New Yorker's most entertaining and acerbic wit — a controversial reassesment of the rituals and events that shape women's lives: weddings, sex, housekeeping, and motherhood.

Caitlin Flanagan, the hilarious and hotly disputed social critic, compares the rituals and experiences that shaped the fifties housewife with those that have forged the modern woman, and arrives at some surprising conclusions. In her signature prose — bitingly funny and brutally honest — Flanagan examines everything from the contemporary white wedding craze to the epidemic of undersexed marriages. Whether she is reporting on the mommy wars, the anti-clutter movement, or America's new nanny culture, her book reveals both the high cost women pay for devoting themselves to the people they love, and also the matchless rewards that come from such a sacrifice.

Caitlin Flanagan began her magazine-writing career at the Atlantic Monthly in 2001 with a series of essays on modern family life that became an immediate sensation and the subject of an ongoing and heated national discussion. Now a staff writer for The New Yorker, her essays are passed from friend to friend, challenged and championed in the media, and often made the subject of book group discussions.

With its insightful observations and trenchant conclusions, To Hell With All That will generate controversy and serious media attention while it also delights and enlightens readers across the country.

Caitlin Flanagan is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award. Her essays have appeared in Best American Essays 2003, and Best American Magazine Writing 2002, 2003, and 2004. She has made numerous national media appearances. She has been the subject of profiles and critiques in the New York Observer, Ms., The New Republic and various other publications.

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