Crazy Love

March 1, 2009
Washington Post columnist Steiner (editor: Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families, 2006) shares the painful story of her abusive marriage.

With a degree from Harvard, a job at Seventeen and an apartment in Manhattan, 22-year-old Steiner was ready to start her life anew after overcoming her substance-abuse problems from her teen years. When she met handsome, charming Conor, a 31-year-old investment banker, she fell hard. On a trip home to an affluent Washington, D.C., suburb to meet her divorcing parents, Conor picked a fight, furious that Steiner grew up in such a"perfect" place while he was beaten by his stepfather in working-class Boston. Although she was wary of his temper, Steiner was too in love and too sympathetic about Conor's past to be anything but relieved when they made up days later. When he half-choked her during sex and whispered"I own you," she was frightened but chalked it up to kinkiness. Days before their wedding, Conor slapped her when she swore at their malfunctioning laptop, but Steiner's fear and doubts were silenced by the avalanche of seemingly irreversible wedding preparations. In steady, intimate prose punctuated by surprising, refreshing streaks of humor, the author describes how the violence escalated, including an incident in which Conor pressed a gun to her temple. Especially enlightening is Steiner's discussion with a professor whose focus is abusive men. After a summer apart for business-school internships, Conor kept his promise not to hit her again—until one violent night when he smashed a picture frame over her head, kicked her in the ribs and strangled her until she lost consciousness. Steiner finally left, even though"leaving meant abandoning…the best part of me, that part that was not afraid to love unconditionally."

This courageous, empowering survival story brings the phrase"battered woman" into terrifying focus.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 15, 2008
Steiner, a fresh Harvard graduate and new hire at "Seventeen" magazine, met a handsome young Wall Street trader riding the subway home. Nearly a year laterfive days before her weddinghe reveals his penchant for battery when he slaps her for swearing at her computer. After two years of enduring his beatings and humiliations, she finally realizes that though she loves him, she can't help him overcome his violent childhood. The internal process of divorcing him and moving on takes much longer. Steiner's is an eye-opening, moving journey, told with candor, self-forgiveness, and grace. For abuse survivors everywhere.EB

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2008
As a young editor at Seventeen magazine, recovering from a history of alcoholism that permeated her family, Steiner met a man she thought was a knight in shining armor. Handsome and charming, Conor had a more troubled background than her own, raised in poverty in Boston by an abusive mother. Deep in vulnerability and denial, she let down her defenses and justified every time he struck her, even as he got progressively more violent. She gave up her magazine job and moved with Conor to a small town in Vermont and later to Chicago, where they both pursued MBAs. Along the way, she took on financial and emotional debt as Conor became increasingly more demanding and violent. He nearly killed her before she found the strength to admit to herself and others what was going on. Steiner, author of the acclaimed anthology Mommy Wars (2006), offers readers a courageous and revealing look at domestic abuse and one womans effort to free herself.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)