Melanie Gideon examines her life as she reaches middle age, is this it, is there more, can she change, should she? But it is all too easy for the pleasures of life to be overlooked, missed when they are no longer there, small things sometimes but we need to look and examine what we truly have and as Melanie Gideon found, often these things are under our noses all along.  THE SLIPPERY YEAR is a poignant and funny insight into a year in Melanie's life as she tries to come to terms with her 'happily ever after'.

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The Wonderful Weekend Book: Reclaim Life’s Simple Pleasures, Elspeth Thompson £8.99 Paperback 352 pages John Murray 7th January 2010 9781848540538

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

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.

When her husband buys a jacked-up truck complete with cattle guard, Melanie Gideon - wife, mother and dog owner - knows her life is about to change. He dreams of taking road trips in it, but Melanie can't muster up any enthusiasm. Instead, the roar of its diesel engine seems to rip through her suburban existence. Dazed, confused and no longer able to recognise herself, she wonders: is this all there is? THE SLIPPERY YEAR is a poignant and funny insight into a year in Melanie's life as she tries to come to terms with her 'happily ever after'. In her quest to reignite passion, beauty and mystery in her life, Melanie reflects on her receding youth and impending midlife, only to discover the sweetness of ordinary pleasures that were there all along ...

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