Otherwise Engaged : a Novel [Hardcover]

Suzanne Finnamore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 1999

"What nobody tells you about getting engaged is he asks you and you're delirious for about two days and then it tapers. He asks you and you're running around telling grocery clerks and ordering subscriptions to bride magazines and discussing prong settings versus suspension settings, and then after two days this ebullience passes. It is no longer conceptual; you have the whole wedding to plan and from that moment on the pressure builds.  

"The ebullience comes back, two days before the wedding. The boomerang effect. Something else no one tells you about.

"They should parachute this information into the major cities."  

For every woman who has ever dreamed of getting married or survived the pre-wedding hell of planning the big day; for every man who has ever watched in horror as the woman he loves mutates into a bride-to-be--a wickedly funny first novel about the excruciating ritual otherwise known as modern marriage.

Michael has finally asked Eve to marry him. It is tempting to believe that everything is going according to plan. But from her first anxiety-producing en- counter with Modern Bride magazine to setting a date ("My impression is that if you don't set a date, they stone you"), finding a dress, ordering invitations ("I don't want the plain envelopes. I want the white go-go boots. Everyone else has them"), and the unrelenting chaos of life in the world beyond the wedding, from the fights and resentment ("For eighteen months I rubbed his back and made him soup and performed really sincere fellatio and now I'm tired") to the disconcerting realization that lately when she looks at her fiance she hears the striking of a Chinese gong and the words FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE echoing through her head, Eve discovers that planning a wedding is fraught with unexpected perils, and it's a long walk to the altar.

Otherwise Engaged is a wry, deliciously caustic ride through the outsized rituals of an American wedding, and a hilarious portrait of what happens to an otherwise rational, intelligent woman when she begins to plan one.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After 18 months of dating, hemming, hawing, begging, badgering, and threatening--as well as performing "really sincere fellatio"--the heroine of Otherwise Engaged has finally finagled an engagement ring. Eve seems confident that Michael, "the epitome of a Nice Jewish Man," is the person she wants to spend her life with. Yet she nearly kills herself soon after the celebratory dinner, staring at her newly acquired rock while speeding along a San Francisco freeway. And she may kill Michael, too, but not accidentally: "Michael leaves his socks on the floor when he takes off his shoes after work. This used to be fine. But now a sock on the floor isn't just a sock on the floor. It's a sock on the floor for the rest of my life."

Suzanne Finnamore's comic novel chronicles the happy couple's year-long engagement--which, to judge from Eve's Valium intake, is about 11 months too long. Eve and Michael bicker over every last detail: whether to hire a professional photographer or one of Michael's advertising-director buddies; which one of them wastes more money; who used up the last can of chicken stock and didn't add it to the shopping list. At 36, Eve throws more tantrums than the average toddler, and Michael's moodiness and problems with his ex-wife certainly don't help. The result is one drama-queen dilemma after another, none of them much ameliorated by Eve's slapstick sessions with "a seventy-year-old Marin County prominent Jungian."

Eve's troubles are primarily self-induced, of course, and the lush life she leads as a lavishly compensated advertising copywriter makes it hard to regard her as a tragic figure. Still, Otherwise Engaged is worth a quick read by any anxious bride-to-be who's delaying that inevitable appointment with Martha Stewart's premarital to-do checklist. --Erica Jorgensen

From Publishers Weekly

Starting where Bridget Jones's Diary and Animal Husbandry left off, Finnamore's debut novel humorously chronicles one woman's life of limbo, now that she's achieved an engagement ring: "He didn't kneel. It's unlikely that I would marry someone who did. From then on, I would live in fear of Whitman Samplers." Narrator and ad-writer Eve, 36, finally maneuvers a proposal from her boyfriend, Michael. But she immediately panics, wondering if she can survive the pressure without losing her mind, her man, or both. Will Eve make it to the altar despite an invasive mother-in-law, the death of a dear high school friend, job woes and her fever-pitch anxiety? Now she's noticing many divorced couples, hoarding her Valium and squabbling constantly with Michael with a ferocity that reminds her of "two grouchy morbid orangutans in a small cage at a testing facility." Eve has a distinctively wry, endearingly comical voice, able to speak bluntly and incisively when examining her neuroses, and to mock her hysteria with deadpan wit. Toward the novel's end, her wedding blues may begin to jangle readers' nerves, however; her observations remain fresh, but one wishes that she'd get a grip, and the sooner the better. But her energetically told story, set in a vibrantly realized San Francisco, should appeal to anyone who can appreciate a cool, clever intelligence capable of discerning the zaniness of the purgatory known as engagement. 75,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (April 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375406522
• ISBN-13: 978-0375406522
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (278 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,665,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, October 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Otherwise Engaged : a Novel (Hardcover)

This is a brilliant novel. And I'm a guy. (And I have to say to those people who have written lonely one star reviews: it's a novel, get a life. It's make believe, just like, oh, I don't know, Barbie.) Funny, yes. But also interestingly profound. Which I feel, personally, is a fair fifty-fifty thing. This really is a book about the process (and it is a process) of engagement. I have a hunch, but no proof, that this is really a bio disguised as a novel. I like to think this, anyway. I like to think there is a real Eve out there somewhere. An actual woman. At least, I'd like to hope there is. On a personal note, I have to say: My girlfriend became the Bitch From Hell after we set The Date. She read this book and it was like she had suddenly entered a Valium haze. All of a sudden, she was calm, cool. The panic was gone. I think because she sort of identified with the main person in the book. She felt like she wasn't alone thinking she was crazy. The ONE complaint I have about this book is a line in the book that says something like, "a sock on the floor is a sock on the floor for the rest of my life" or something. Anyway, the same is true for me. For the rest of my life, I will walk into the bathroom in the morning and be greeted by nylons hanging over MY towel. And also, there's never any room in the medicine cabinet. At least I hope.

61 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank God!!!!, April 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Otherwise Engaged : a Novel (Hardcover)

I am going to be married in four months. Assuming I'm not hit by a bus tomorrow or eat warm mayonnaise by accident. And I am going crazy. As a gift, my friend, Ann, gave me a copy of Otherwise Engaged, by Suzanne Finnamore. I was like, "you want me to READ???" She said, "Just read it." So I did.I would like my review to be a gigantic bullhorn to EVERY woman who is either engaged, about to be engaged, wanting to be engaged or wishing to be so. SOMEBODY FINALLY GETS IT.That's what I would shout. This book is absolutely important and wonderful. For the first time, SOMEBODY has come forward and talked about the anxiety that we feel when we are in a relationship. I mean the real stuff, the stuff we think but don't say and sometimes don't even admit we think. This is a very brave novel, and I am so personally grateful to the writer (Suzanne Finnamore) for writing it. Aside from being paralyzingly funny, it's all TRUE. She gets it. I have been going out of my mind thinking I am the only person who is feeling what I feel and then all of a sudden, SMACK. I read this book.I also saw New York Magazine recently because my husband-to-be is from NY and we subscribe, and there she was...except I didn't like one thing: they compared Otherwise Engaged to the Bridget Jones book and I read that (loved it) but this is really different...I almost want to say that BJ is about being single and Finnamore is about getting married, but that's not it. The difference is, to me, BJ is a really fun read. But Otherwise Engaged is astounding. Every word is perfect and you just read it and think, "I want to KNOW her..." There are so many good lines that I would wake up my boyfriend and say, "listen to this..." and he would say "what time is it?" and then I would say, "Just listen..." Because the thing is, it looks like a girl book, but it's really not. My guy was like, "This is really funny, who is this girl, this is great...that's so you..." This book gives me permission to feel what I feel. Validation, I guess is the term a shrink might use.Anyway, the only problem with the book is this: it goes from very funny to very deep and you have no idea when it comes. My copy of the book has ice cream stains on it because I laughed out loud and, well -splatt. So be forewarned. It IS this funny. Also, I hate the fact that the author had the nerve to end it. I NEED MORE!!! Don't borrow it, GET it...I know it's a little hard to get because everyone keeps selling out, but it's WORTH it. My advice is Amazon...only because all the bookstores in my area keep saying, "two more days" and they seem to be able to get books faster...Just don't combine it with food.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny because it's honest and thoughtful (not crazy), July 12, 2000

By 

A. Maxham "Just trying to help..." - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Otherwise Engaged : a Novel (Hardcover)

As I write this review, 186 other people have reviewed this thing- so the question is: What incremental contribution can I make over and above the other 186 people who've had something to say about this book. Well, I'll try and be helpful by summarizing what everyone else has said, dispel some myths, and help set expectations:

I avoided reading this book because based on what reviews I had read, I was afraid it was this "madcap romp through the bridal world"- I was scared it was going to be Bridget Jones Gets Married. I like Bridget, but "being engaged" and weddings are already superficial enough in this culture without the added bonus of slapstick.

This book is honest, genuine and really has very little to do with ordering flowers (don't even think i saw the word "florist," actually) or invitations (she does talk about addressing them and picking them out, but it's fairly quick). It's more about a person going through a transition in life and coping with the fears associated with those changes than it is about being engaged. I found it to be very similar to "Welcome to My Planet" by Shannon Olsen- Eve (from this book) and Shannon (from "Welcome...") both are transitioning and having to grow up and realize that they have to stop looking backward and give up certain things in order to gain certain things. I'm not engaged and never have been married, and I still very much related to that kind of emotional growth.

I also liked the fact that she's not a screw up at work- It seems a lot of these 30-year-old-woman books (Lucy Sullivan, Welcome to my Planet, Getting over it) are about a woman who's a mess at work and in her personal life- This woman is successful at work (six figures no less), and I could really relate to her a lot more- I'm a little maxed out on screwups.

It is a fairly quick read but- I've read other reviews that said it's a superficial book. They are reading it too fast, which isn't necessarily wrong- it's just that they are sorta being like those dogs who gulp their food down without tasting it.

This book is hilarious. Partly because of its honesty, but also because of some one-liners. For example, she's discussing the fact that Michael (her fiance, obviously) has been married before and discussing her feelings about being a second wife:

"First wife, second wife. I will always be second. Even if his first wife dies, I don't move up the ladder. It's not like being an understudy. It's so much more complicated. Second. It's so Nancy Kerrigan."

So far, I think this is one of the better of this 30-year-old-woman books, for what it's worth. Thanks Suzanne- Do we get a book on the next stage of life too?