Against Love: A Polemic (Vintage) - Tapa blanda

"Engagingly acerbic . . . extremely funny. . . . A deft indictment of the marital ideal, as well as a celebration of the dissent that constitutes adultery, delivered in pointed daggers of prose." -New Yorker

"It's about time someone blew apart our idealistic notions about relationships and love." -New York Post

"A timely, entertaining cherry bomb of a book. . . . Smart, witty and withering." -The Boston Globe

"Wonderfully clever, deliciously written. . . . Kipnis blends journalistic pizazz and philosophical nerve . . . Whether you agree or not, Kipnis' crackling colloquial style keeps Against Love rollicking forward, often hilariously. . . . It's hard to imagine even the fiercest champion of wedded bliss not enjoying the provocations of this book." -Philadelphia Inquirer

"If you think of 'family values' as something more, better and different from simply loving the people in your family, avoid this book for fear of apoplexy." -The Washington Post

"Reading Against Love, I felt invigorated half the time and plunged into the deepest, most morose pit of self-pitying despair the rest of it-in other words, I felt as if I were in love. This seems to have been Kipnis's aim." -Salon

"In this ragingly witty yet contemplative look at the discontents of domestic and erotic relationships, Kipnis . . . combines portions of the slashing sexual contrarianism of Mailer, the scathing antidomestic wit of early Roseanne Barr and the coolly analytical aesthetics of early Sontag. . . . With a razor-sharp intelligence and a gleeful sense of irony, Kipnis dismantles the myths of romance surrounding monogamy." -Publisher's Weekly

"Wittily invigorating. . . . [Kipnis] possesses the gleeful, viperish wit of a Dorothy Parker and the energetic charisma of a cheerleader. She is dead-on about the everyday exhaustion a relationship can produce." -Slate

"A person would need a heart of stone not to rejoice at the drubbing [Kipnis] delivers. . . . Funny and astute . . . much of the writing is informed and bracing, amplifying ideas about social control derived from Engels, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Raymond Williams, Foucault and Adam Phillips." -Chicago Tribune

"[Kipnis is] a talented social satirist." -Weekly Standard

"Against Love is a wonderfully provocative book, daring and incisive, written with verve and no small amount of humor. It raises a thousand questions most of us lack the courage to ask, about domestic life and even the meaning of the human enterprise, while remaining at every instant a delight to read." -Scott Turow

"Kipnis's treatise reads like a brisk, sophisticated novel about the beginning, middle and end of an adulterous affair. . . . [A] bravura book." -Times Literary Supplement (London)

"This book is trouble . . . and the worst thing is that Kipnis is so convincing. A vastly entertaining and smart work of social criticism. Kipnis demonstrates her brilliance at the [polemic] form . . . playing a heretic in the chapel of love. An unsettling and witty deconstruction of love and marriage." -NPR, Fresh Air

An analysis of the social ramifications of adultery examines its cultural significance, considering that adulterers may pose valid political questions about social contracts and offering a utopian vision that challenges the modern purposes of fidelity. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.