February 2010 Editor's Choice.

A woman of a certain age wondering quite how her life turned out the way it did, and was this really where she expected to be. When the author published an article in the New York Times on this theme housewives across America empathised, maybe you will too and if not you’ll still have fun reading this wise and witty memoir.

Dear Reader,
 
It takes a certain quality of writing to catch an editor’s attention when faced with the fire hazard that is the daily submissions pile. My attention wasn’t just caught with The Slippery Year by Melanie Gideon: it was tickled, it was entertained and it was grabbed with both hands.
 
The Slippery Year is a wonderful exploration of marriage, parenthood and happily ever after. It’s a memoir about life the wrong side of forty: the white charger has been shipped off to the knacker’s yard some years ago and instead of sleeping next to your lover, you’re sleeping next to a relative ... and for the rest of your ‘staying home on a Saturday night’ life. It’s about a wife and mother struggling through a year without knowing quite who she is anymore, or more to the point, who she wants to be.

So does Melanie escape to have tantric sex with a yogi in the Himalayas? No, she finds happiness exactly where she is: in the beauty of everyday life and in the love her family shares. And that’s why this book is so unexpected and so special. It’s not about escape; it’s about discovering anew the delights of your own life.

Reading The Slippery Year can be compared to having a drink with a best friend and cathartically laughing and crying the night away. That’s why I love this book and have selected it as my Editor’s Choice. I hope you love it too.

Best wishes,

Amanda Harris
Editorial Director
Non-fiction

Synopsis

Have you ever sat across the breakfast table from your husband and wondered, How did I get here? Do the things that once made you complete-including your husband-now feel like a burden? Is the life you are leading an unrecognizable version of the one you imagined for yourself not so very long ago? Welcome to the world of Melanie Gideon.

THE SLIPPERY YEAR chronicles a year in which Gideon confronts both the fantasies of her receding youth and the realities of midlife with a husband and a child and a dog (one of whom runs away). Marriage changes passion, Gideon confides; suddenly you're in bed with a relative (in Gideon's case, a relative with a penchant for buying residential vehicles online.) She reflects on the exigencies of family life-the need for a household catastrophe plan, the fainting spell occasioned by the departure of her nine year old son for camp. With wit, tenderness, and unsparing honesty, Gideon captures that moment in our lives when the magic starts to ebb, and when the things you have loved forever begin to fall away for the first time. It is the story of a woman's quest, in the face of all the big questions ( What's this loose skin around my knees? I don't look as old as she does, do I? ) to reignite passion, beauty and mystery, and discover if 'happily ever after' is a possibility after all.

About the Author

Melanie Gideon lives in San Francisco with her husband and son. Her essay 'A Diesel Engine Woke Up My Marriage' originally in the New York Times and caused an tide of empathy from fellow housewives who were wondering, 'How did I get here?!' More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation