Outtakes From a Marriage

Can Julia, a high-strung Manhattanite who gave up her free-spirited lifestyle to marry a struggling actor, find happiness (two children and many years later) as the wife of handsome Joe Ferraro, now a popular TV star and Golden Globe nominee? Julia thinks so--until she accidentally hears one of Joe's voice mails and discovers a message from a filthy-mouthed sex kitten. Cassandra Campbell's spot-on reading takes listeners through Julia's inability to confront Joe, her obsessive re-listening to his voice messages, and a personal crisis that drives her to therapy, hair extensions, dermabrasion, lip plumping, and BOTOX. Campbell has a ball with Ann Leary's cleverly written, darkly humorous take on marriage, backstage politics, and the New York City "mommy" scene, especially the nursery-Nazi moms at Julia's son's prestigious multicultural day care. Much fun! S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

April 28, 2008
Memoirist Leary (An Innocent, a Broad
) follows in her fiction debut the unraveling of Julia Ferraro after she accidentally discovers a racy message in her Golden Globe–nominee husband's voice mail. As the doubts about her husband, Joe, mount, Julia begins examining other areas of her life with closer scrutiny, and her behavior becomes increasingly erratic as her paranoia grows: she dabbles in Restylane and Botox, attempts to seduce her shrink and plants rumors about her husband on Gawker. In addition to Julia's marital angst, she is also managing a shaky relationship with her entitled, adolescent daughter, Ruby, and is wracked with anxiety over her own lack of a career. Julia is a sharp and self-aware narrator, though there are moments when she seems too much a romantic, particularly for someone with otherwise worldly and wry sensibilities. Leary, the wife of actor Denis Leary, has an eye for the comedy of manners of the rich and idle. As Julia's daughter observes, “You don't really have to do anything.” Julia responds: “I know. You have no idea how stressful that is.”