My friend Lori Gottlieb has taken a very funny controversial article in the March 2008 issue of the Atlantic and blew it out into an entire book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.  I just pre-ordered it — it should be out just in time for Valentine’s Day, 2/4/2010.  Here’s some info on the book and why I think this book is so cool — what my connection is to it, aside from being friends with Lori.

Lori Gottlieb wrote a very popular and controversial article for the Atlantic Monthly magazine’s March 2008 issue: Marry Him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.  Years before, Lori has interviewed me about my over-dramatic love life and then, after the fact-checker called me and checked up on me (she was more compassionate on the phone than strict — she wished me good luck and told me I was better off) I almost forgot about it.  Well, when it came out, I was indeed quoted in the Atlantic, one of my favorite modern periodicals.

About Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough

You have a fulfilling job, a great group of friends, the perfect apartment, and no shortage of dates. So what if you haven’t found The One just yet. Surely he’ll come along, right?

But what if he doesn’t? Or even worse, what if he already has, but you just didn’t realize it?

Suddenly finding herself forty and single, Lori Gottlieb said the unthinkable in her March 2008 article in The Atlantic: Maybe she, and single women everywhere, needed to stop chasing the elusive Prince Charming and instead go for Mr. Good Enough.

Looking at her friends’ happy marriages to good enough guys who happen to be excellent husbands and fathers, Gottlieb declared it time to reevaluate what we really need in a partner. Her ideas created a firestorm of controversy from outlets like the Today show to The Washington Post, which wrote, “Given the perennial shortage of perfect men, Gottlieb’s probably got a point,” to Newsweek and NPR, which declared, “Lori Gottlieb didn’t want to take her mother’s advice to be less picky, but now that she’s turned forty, she wonders if her mother is right.” Women all over the world were talking. But while many people agreed that they should have more realistic expectations, what did that actually mean out in the real world, where Gottlieb and women like her were inexorably drawn to their “type”?

That’s where Marry Him comes in.

By looking at everything from culture to biology, in Marry Him Gottlieb frankly explores the dilemma that so many women today seem to face—how to reconcile the strong desire for a husband and family with a list of must-haves so long and complicated that many great guys get rejected out of the gate. Here Gottlieb shares her own journey in the quest for romantic fulfillment, and in the process gets wise guidance and surprising insights from marital researchers, matchmakers, dating coaches, behavioral economists, neuropsychologists, sociologists, couples therapists, divorce lawyers, and clergy—as well as single and married men and women, ranging in age from their twenties to their sixties.

Marry Him is an eye-opening, often funny, sometimes painful, and always truthful in-depth examination of the modern dating landscape, and ultimately, a provocative wake-up call about getting real about Mr. Right.

Marry Him has been optioned for film by Tobey Maguire for Warner Brothers.

Click here for an interview with Lori.

What People are Saying

“What Lori Gottlieb is saying isn’t subversive – it’s smart. A thoroughly entertaining reality check, it will make single women laugh and squirm, and married people appreciate their spouses even more.”
—Diablo Cody, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of JUNO

“I wish I could round up every single woman I know and assign this book for discussion. Gottlieb helps women see how our cultural or private fantasies build up so many expectations that they destroy the possibility of real love and, eventually, marriage. Marry Him is a big fat lesson in how not to get in your own way. Any woman who wants to find true love and hasn’t been able to should read this book.”
—Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., relationship expert at Perfectmatch.com

“Finally, here’s a cautionary tale for anyone wondering why she hasn’t found Mr. Right—with a hopeful message about the Mr. Right Nows, the Mr. Close Enoughs, and even the Mr. What the F*#%s.”
—Jill Soloway, writer and executive producer for Six Feet Under

“Engaging, hilarious, brutally honest, and eye-opening! Marry Him is an encouraging story about finding love by getting real.”
—Rachel Greenwald, New York Times bestselling author of Find a Husband After 35

“This is a daring and wise book. Gottlieb tells it like it is: In our modern world of excess, too many of us have unrealistic expectations about men and love, and even more unrealistic views of ourselves. Women (and men) should take Gottlieb’s message to heart: ‘Look for reasons to say yes.’ It could change your life.”
—Helen Fisher, Ph.D., Rutgers University and author of Why Him? Why Her?

“I have been very happily married for many years, and if my daughters ever ask me for advice about potential spouses, I plan to pass off a lot of what’s in this book as my own sage wisdom.”
—Kurt Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of Heyday and host of public radio’s Studio 360

“Marry Him shows women how to find true happiness when seeking love—by giving them a new way to look at the world. Gottlieb manages to be hilarious yet thought-provoking, light-hearted yet profound on the questions of: Why do we fall in love? What qualities really matter in a marriage? For what reasons do we make the decisions that affect our whole lives? Like provocative relationship classics such as The Rules and He’s Just Not That Into You, Marry Him will set people talking for years.”
—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

“Lori Gottlieb’s smart, insightful, witty observations gleaned on her own unusual romantic path signal an important new voice in single-girl lit. The Rules turned single women needy, He’s Just Not That Into You made them depressed, and Marry Him finally sets them free, preaching that in the long run, ‘good enough’ might be better than great.”
—Amy Sohn, author of Prospect Park West

“Marry Him is a treasure. A must-read on getting the male and female brain together in almost perfect harmony.”
—Louann Brizendine, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Brain and the upcoming The Male Brain

“By telling you to read Lori Gottlieb’s incisive and insightful book, I hope I can make up for all the unrealistic romantic propaganda I had a hand in spreading as a former editor at a glossy women’s magazine. For anyone who is single but looking, the surprising truths in Marry Him go against just about everything we’ve been brought up to believe aboutdating and marriage.”

—Megan McCafferty, New York Times bestselling author of the Jessica Darling series

What People Said About the Atlantic Article

“Gottlieb gets a lot right about what it’s like to be a heterosexual, middle-class, single woman in her 30s, and how different it is from being a heterosexual, middle-class single woman in her 20s. What took me by surprise is the extent to which the change is palpable, even for women like me, who haven’t been planning their dream wedding since girlhood; who are in fact ambivalent about babies and marriage… I think Gottlieb has done something important … She debunks the vapid “You go, girl!” form of empowerment, which often harms women by suggesting that they shouldn’t settle for less than everything. Gottlieb, in contrast, tells her story as if she were speaking to a roomful of adults, who can be trusted not to faint at bad news.”
—The Economist

“Just six years ago, suggesting that women consider their eggs before rejecting suitors was controversial. Today, it’s so commonplace that the very un-Carrie notion of “settling” is no longer taboo. Settling will make you happier, [Gottlieb] said, because those who marry with high expectations are only disappointed.”
—Newsweek

“It all depends on what you consider settling. What I failed to realize, in the blushing first stages of romantic love, is that romance is not what runs a household, gets the kids washed, or folds the ironing.”
—Good Housekeeping

“[Gottlieb’s essay] has sparked responses, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, whose collective word count surely exceeds that of her article by at least a hundred-fold… I detect enough self-deprecating drollery in the essay to persuade me it’s not the crime against humanity that many of its more vehement critics are convinced it is.”
—The Los Angeles Times

“Last week I was in the salon getting a mani-pedi and I overheard two of the gals discussing an article from the Atlantic magazine. Why wait for the perfect man, when he just might be a myth?”
— Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report

“I think this is going to continue to be debated for the next millennia or two.”
—Neal Conan, NPR’s “Talk of the Nation”

“Gottlieb’s advice contradicts the romantic message of a million love songs and Valentine’s cards and chick flicks. But given the perennial shortage of perfect men, she’s probably got a point.”
—The Washington Post