No Cheating, No Dying: I Had a Good Marriage. Then I Tried To Make It Better. [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Weil (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 7, 2012

Written with charm and wit, No Cheating, No Dying investigates one of the most universal human institutions--marriage. Elizabeth Weil and her husband Dan have two basic ground rules for their marriage: no cheating, no dying.  For ten years it’s worked fine, but Elizabeth started to wonder if it could be better.

Elizabeth Weil believes that you don’t get married in a white dress, in front of all your future in-laws and ex-boyfriends but gradually, over time, through all the road rage incidents and pre-colonoscopy enemas, good and bad dinners, and all the small moments you never expected to happen or much less endure.  In this book, Weil examines the major universal marriage issues—sex, money, mental health, in-laws, children—through bravely recounting her own hilarious, messy, and sometimes difficult relationship. She seeks out the advice of financial planners, psychoanalysts, therapists, household management consultants, priests, rabbis, and the United States government. Woven into this funny and forthright narrative is Weil's extensive research on marriage and marriage improvement. The result is an illuminating and entertaining read that is a fresh addition to the body of literature about marriage.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Deciding that the laissez-faire if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it adage shouldn’t apply to marriage, Weil set out to improve her own, a marriage that she and most people she knew considered an ideal one. For one year, Weil and her husband—fellow writer, coparticipant in what they long ago named their whole life creative act of writing and creating and raising a family, and colossally good sport—Daniel Duane, visit therapists, attend seminars and hippie-dippie workshops, and seek out financial counsel, knowing full well that they might scare out some snakes. Weil, whose 2009 New York Times Magazine story Married (Happily) with Issues forms the basis for the book, approaches this creative act with unfaltering self-awareness, and this is what makes her pursuit so successful and readable. Indeed, the author’s own surprise at what she finds when rooting around the depths of her union translates to moments of unanticipated beauty on the printed page. The best kind of popular-psychology title, probing without proposing self-help, this book will appeal to a broad range of readers and start conversations among them. --Annie Bostrom

Review

“A whip smart and contagiously humorous attempt to address the eternal conundrum of domestic ennui and its discontents.” --Elle

“Witty, honest . . .” -- People

“Weil has a voice that charms, full of wit, intelligence and compassion.” -- O, The Oprah Magazine

“The story of their marriage-improvement journey is both hilarious and insightful.” -- The New York Times Book Review

“Quite wonderful . . . an astonishingly intimate, hilariously self-deprecating, vibrant and thoroughly modern memoir.” -- San Francisco Chronicle

“An engaging, often funny and heartfelt memoir about the not-so-romantic realities that can follow 'I do.'" -- Tampa Bay Times

"What ultimately makes No Cheating, No Dying such a thrilling read is the way Weil fiercely includes the reader in the secret life of her marriage." -- Knoxville MetroPulse

“Weil approaches this creative act with unfaltering self awareness, and this is what makes her pursuit so successful and readable. Indeed, the author’s own surprise at what she finds when rooting around the depths of her union translates to moments of unanticipated beauty on the printed page.” -Booklist

"This is such a smart and rich and insightful book (sometimes painfully funny, other times funnily painful) about what it really takes to keep the turbines of modern marriage going. Reading this memoir, I found myself rooting not only for Liz and Dan, but for all of us -- all married couples who've been humbled by life and stress, but who keep struggling and striving, year after year, to somehow keep it together." --Elizabeth Gilbert

"Part experiment, part memoir — told with candor and grace. . . . " -- New Jersey Star Ledger

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (February 7, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439168229
• ISBN-13: 978-1439168226
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #509,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Weil is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. She lives in San Francisco with her charming, obsessive husband, the writer Daniel Duane, and their two daughters. They used to have a dog, but the dog was more work than the girls. When she first became a journalist, she really wanted to cover big important topics, like the death penalty. But more recently she's wanted to write about love.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, likeable, but not profound March 20, 2012

By Jessica P. Miller

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm not sure why this new memoir caught my eye. Wait, yes I am. Three marriages in our social circle have experienced divorce and/or separation in the last year or so. It's made me think a lot about marriage. Elizabeth Weil has written for Vogue, Real Simple, and Outside, is a co author of a couple of nonfiction (bathroom genre?) books on parenting and love. She's also a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. In 2009, she published Married (Happily) With Issues, which gives a good sense of what the book is about.

Weil says that one day she suddenly wondered why she and her husband (also a writer) work hard at their jobs, parenting, and hobbies, but not their marriage. I never bought the idea that the marriage project occurred to Weil prior to and independently of the writing possibilities it presented. But she seemed genuinely engaged in the various therapies and marriage classes they experienced during the year of marriage improvement, and I enjoyed No Cheating, No Dying anyway.

I was fine with framing an investigation of marriage around an improvement project. I really liked Weil's voice, and found her to be a very sympathetic narrator, even when she was making judgments or choices I couldn't support. I thought she asked a lot of really good questions, without preaching or offering tidy answers:

"We all know or think we know what marriage is: a legal commitment between two people. The idea of the good marriage is ill-defined, not to mention anxiety-producing, as it forces all marrieds within earshot to ask themselves, Is my marriage good? Why do I think my marriage is good?"

I thought she was insightful, and found myself nodding along, even on the smaller issues:

"Becoming parents had helped nobody, and the standard remedies-- the date nights, the weekend getaways-- often felt cosmetic and under-gunned, like opening a beautifully wrapped and ribboned box to find one's own clothes."

This was a very interesting, at times quite moving read. Weil's account of their difficult decision to terminate a wanted pregnancy as a result of fetal abnormalities was probably the most difficult part, but there was a good dose of humor as well. Weil makes liberal use of sources as diverse as novelists (Lorrie Moore: Marriage is ... "a fine arrangement in general, except one never got it generally. One got it very, very specifically.") marriage and family therapists, and Consumer Reports (only 37% of clients thinks therapy helped their marriage), but it never feels like info dumping, and is always well-integrated into the base narrative of her relationship with her husband. The downside is that while I got some interesting information, it's a bit scattershot and superficial. In short, the book works much better as a memoir than as a self-help book.

Weil herself comes off better than her husband (perhaps inevitably), although, to her credit, one chapter addresses a rather blameworthy and significant omission of hers that had a negative impact on her marriage. It feels awkward to write this, because he is a real person, but I do think it is relevant to a review of a memoir which asks the reader to cheer for a marriage: I didn't care much for him at all. This guy was just so unappealing, from the early dates when he told her things like "I don't like your shoes" or "I don't like your glasses", to the therapy when he "launched into an exhaustive sexual history. 'When I was fifteen years old I was dating a girl. ...' I can't tell you how monumentally sick I felt hearing about Dan's ex-girlfriends." He even wrote an erotic book about one of his exes when they were engaged. When their children were two and four, Dan, a self-taught cook, insisted on serving things like quail, blood sausages, pigeon and rabbit on four consecutive weeknights for dinner.

I enjoyed reading No Cheating No Dying. It was interesting, fun, and sometimes very thoughtful. The problems and issues in Weil's marriage (balancing money, dueling careers, dealing with the in-laws) were pretty easy to identify with, and I was interested in how she handled them. For whatever reason, I was quite intrigued by Weil's life. But the book didn't completely gel (organization was lacking, and some chapters felt like filler) and it isn't going to stick with me for long.

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag March 5, 2012

By Elle

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I had such mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I thought the premise was really interesting and I thought Elizabeth Weil is a good writer and somewhat engaging. On the other hand, I just couldn't get past how much of a jerk her husband sounded like! First, he insults her on the phone while they are first dating...doesn't like her glasses, etc. I think many women would have left at that point. Then, he insists she move to California from the east coast where she grew up. It's too ugly for him. Boston is nasty. OK, well, whatever. But here's the final kicker for me: after her parents move there to to be closer to their daughter and grandkids, he gets all angry about the fact that she wants to spend time with them. He doesn't like the community that they live in (although it sounds like Elizabeth and her kids liked it a lot). Maybe this was all subconscious on her part, but through most of the book I was wondering why she thought this was a "good" marriage, and why she would stay with him, or at least not stand up to this bully. Maybe writing this book was her way at getting revenge, I don't know. All she kept doing was agreeing to his demands, putting up with his "temper", and generally getting pushed around. If that's the secret to a good marriage, well you can keep it. (I've been married 26 years, and believe me, I understand compromise. But this didn't sound like compromise, it just sounded like rolling over and playing dead). She mentioned a few times how he made her feel beautiful. The whole thing just sounded kind of sad to me, and she sounds like someone with self esteem issues who is married to a bully. Whether this is true or not, I don't really know but that was the vibe I got from this book. If you really want advice about marriage, I'd pass on this one.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars great read March 13, 2012

By Rick Addicks

Format:Hardcover

sharp, fun, insightful look at marriage and many of the issues so many of us face. if reasonably happily married, with kids, and between the ages of 35 and 50, you really should read and enjoy this book.