The Rules Do Not Apply

January 2, 2017
In this dark and absorbing memoir, Levy (Female Chauvinist Pigs), a staff writer for the New Yorker, recounts her complicated life and, with stunning clarity, reveals that the best laid plans can be sidetracked. As a child in Larchmont, N.Y., Levy was taught that she could achieve anything she wanted. Her mother encouraged her to make her own rules, with one caveat: never become dependent upon a man. As a successful young writer in the 1990s (first for New York magazine), Levy traveled widely, writing primarily on the topic of sexuality and gender. At 28, she fell in love with and married a 41-year-old woman with substance abuse problems. Though Levy longed for motherhood and a comfortable life, she also had a “compulsion” for adventure. Ten years later she got pregnant with the help of a sperm donor and then suffered a miscarriage while on assignment in Mongolia. Levy took a writerly approach to the narrative of her own life, believing that her personal story would unfold as if she had penned it. Her awakening to the fact that life doesn’t always cooperate with one’s plan is raw and compelling. Though some of the lessons learned in this memorable story are painful, Levy ultimately finds redemption in her ability to glimpse the light beyond the darkness, and to gain a deepening gratitude for friends, family, and her profession.

April 15, 2017

For some readers, this stellar work will evoke memories, as author (Female Chauvinist Pigs) and New Yorker staff writer Levy first wrote of the catalyzing events depicted here in a New Yorker piece, "Thanksgiving in Mongolia." However, this account ranges further afield. With intensity and grace, Levy unpacks her courtship, marriage, affair, pregnancy, the premature birth and death of her child, her wife's alcoholism, their separation, and divorce in a scant 200-plus pages, yet her writing feels expansive. Readers will find a compelling meditation on what it means to be female, to be married, and to explore the boundaries and contexts that surround personhood, marriage, desire, and aspiration. This title serves to remind readers, as well as the author, that while rules exist, they need not ultimately define us. VERDICT Levy uses her considerable talents, presented in raw, genuinely felt prose, to bring readers into deeply personal experiences that resonate on a visceral level. (Memoir, 2/20/17; ow.ly/B6Ub30a5C5W)--Rachael Dreyer, Eberly Family Special Collections Lib., Pennsylvania State Univ.

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