The Cherry in the Martini

The New York Times–bestselling author of The Best of Everything charts her emotional development from awkward youth to cynical adulthood in this memoir.

The Cherry in the Martini is abundant with personal insights on the joys and challenges of childhood and youth. In short autobiographical essays, Jaffe shares vivid memories of her first experiences of love and loss in her search to find her voice as both a woman and writer. Straightforward and unsentimental, Rona Jaffe’s memoir explores the complex emotions of adolescence into adulthood with an honesty that all readers will find welcoming and relatable.

Praise for the writing of Rona Jaffe

“Reading Rona Jaffe is like being presented with a Cartier watch: you know exactly what you’re getting and it’s just what you want. Put your feet up, take the phone off the hook, and enjoy.” ―Cosmopolitan

“Vivid and trenchant. . . . Wry and very readable. . . . A minor genius.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“Jaffe has not lost her wit, her keen eye for human frailties and her ear for the small but telling remark.” ―Publishers Weekly

Rona Jaffe (1931–2005) was born in Brooklyn, New York. She attended the Dalton School and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951 at the age of nineteen. In her early twenties, she worked at Fawcett Publications, starting as a file clerk and working her way up to associate editor. At twenty-five, she quit her job to focus on her novel The Best of Everything (1958). She went on to write sixteen more books during her career including Mr. Right Is Dead (1965), The Other Woman (1972), Family Secrets (1974), Class Reunion (1979), The Road Taken (2000), and The Room-Mating Season (2001). In 1995, she established The Rona Jaffe Foundation, supporting promising emergent women writers. Jaffe died of cancer in 2005.