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. What is it that makes intimate portraits of failed relationships so fascinating? Katie Roiphe doesn't romanticize or make excuses for her complex subjects and their entanglements but treats them with wit, warmth, and respect. Despite a few historical inaccuracies and questionable assumptions, critics considered Roiphe's perceptive exploration of unconventional marriages in the early 20th century a success. It can be difficult to empathize with the selfish and arrogant people who populate this book, but these revealing accounts are nevertheless captivating, the narrative intelligent and absorbing. Roiphe has done her research and produced an elegant, provocative, and entertaining description of an era and some of its more eccentric denizens. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. *Starred Review* Marriage is perpetually interesting," observes Roiphe. The author of two previous astute books about contemporary sexual mores here extends her fascination with complex human interactions in a set of incisive literary double portraits. Roiphe's colorful subjects lived in a time of social ferment as Victorian values crumbled in the wake of World War I and women's lives radically changed. They were given to often excruciating self-analysis as they negotiated daringly and painfully unconventional marriages. Anchoring each biographical sketch to a marital crisis, Roiphe presents a singularly empathic view of the union of the talented and doomed Katharine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry, and dramatic insights into the dynamic between H. G. Wells, his wife, and his pregnant lover, Rebecca West; the marriage and affairs of muse Ottoline Morrell; Radclyffe Hall's longtime lesbian relationship; and Vanessa and Clive Bell's elastic marriage and its impact on Vanessa's sister, Virginia Woolf. Bertrand Russell appears frequently, playing one dicey part in the unforgettable story of the indomitable writer Elizabeth Vonarmin and her awful marriage to Russell's monstrous brother. In each tale, Roiphe, inspired aesthetically and philosophically by the writings and lives of these social and artistic pioneers, offers sophisticated psychological, sexual, and social analysis, fashioning uncommonly affecting portraits of uncommon men and women. Seaman, Donna “Fans of Pamela Paul and Cathi Hanauer will enjoy [ Uncommon Arrangements ].... provocative, dishy, substantive and fun.— Publishers Weekly , starred review "A marriage of biography, sociology and literary history, Uncommon Arrangements unites these elements through deep scholarship and deft storytelling into a work of durable, and uncommon, distinction."— Houston Chronicle Katie Roiphe received her Ph.D. from Princeton in English literature. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Esquire, Vogue, Harper’s, and the New Yorker. Her previous books include The Morning After, Last Night in Paradise , and a novel, Still She Haunts Me . She lives in New York. H.G. and Jane Wells "Between the ages of thirty and forty I devoted a considerable amount of mental energy to the general problem of men and women . . ."—H. G. Wells AUGUST 5, 1914. A few minutes after midnight as Britain was entering the war, an illegitimate baby was born in a conspicuously anonymous redbrick house on the northern