The girl that he marries: A novel - Hardcover

Lerman, Rhoda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0030153360 ISBN 13: 9780030153365

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976

Synopsis

“A wickedly funny comedy of erotic manners” (The Atlantic), with a foreword by Phyllis Rose

Outrageous and outrageously funny, The Girl That He Marries is a swift satiric jab at love and romance, a novel that gets right to the heart of the modern man/woman relationship. It is the story of Stephanie―nearly thirty and still single, a bright and attractive young woman with an unerring instinct for unmarriageable men and a nagging fear she’s going to grow old alone.

Enter Richard: urbane, ambitious, and eminently marriageable. The adored son of an adoring mother, Richard has been adroitly manipulating people all his life. He’s especially adroit at the game of love. Before she knows it, Stephanie is hooked on Richard’s games. But before Richard knows it, Stephanie has figured out the rules―and very soon is beating him at his own artful game. In the process, she twists herself into the girl he would marry―and becomes a very different woman. The trouble is, as Stephanie finds out too late, when you play the mating game, you risk getting stuck with the prize.

Beneath its comic absurdities, The Girl That He Marries unpacks the deceptions of romance and tells a cautionary tale―for Stephanie is every woman who has reached that dangerous age where uncertainty and fear fuse with pop romantic notions, submerging integrity, and a sense of self. 

About this title

About the Author:

Rhoda Lerman (1936–2015) is the author of several critically-praised novels and works of nonfiction. In 2014, her works were heavily featured in The Shelf by Phyllis Rose. Lerman’s novel Eleanor, inspired by the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, was adapted into a one woman stage play, most recently starring Loretta Swit.

Review:

“A perfectly nice female person succumbs to the atavistic urge to transform herself into the All-Time Classic Wife. With Rhoda Lerman’s outrageous talent this becomes the feminist Jekyll-and-Hyde of our time―and we recognize the monster in ourselves while we’re laughing.”
- Gloria Steinem

“Read it and weep. [A] savage, sexist, hilarious romance a la Kafka . . . Pursuers of ordinary men (is there some other kind?) can hardly afford to miss this cautionary tale.”
- Alix Nelson, The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
• Publication date: 1976
• ISBN 10: 0030153360
• ISBN 13: 9780030153365
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 220