Heather Havrilesky
“Ask Polly” advice columnist on Substack, essayist, and author
Leslie Jamison, Ph.D.
New York Times bestselling author and an associate professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts
Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Foreverland from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Havrilesky and Jamison that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
Most marriage memoirs are a shiny, happy lie. In Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage, popular advice columnist and essayist Heather Havrilesky (FAN ’18) sets out to write the world’s first brutally honest but still somehow optimistic inside look at how a marriage actually functions – and stumbles, and struggles, and sometimes fails – over the course of fifteen years. From falling madly in love with her handsome professor husband to the cold feet that ensued when she discovered some of his more jarring flaws, through the harrowing experiences of raising three kids, moving to the deeply uncool suburbs, becoming obsessed with a random, out-of-the-blue crush, and facing mortality in the middle of a pandemic, Havrilesky brings readers on a marital joyride in a clown car that sometimes swerves dangerously toward sheer cliffs. Or as she puts it, “To be married is to have the words ‘This is all your fault’ eternally poised on the tip of your tongue.”
This gracefully written, insightful exploration of the joys and horrors of long-term commitment is the marriage memoir most of us didn’t know we needed. One part cautionary tale, one part high comedy, two parts moving testament to the power of honesty, Foreverland offers a chaotic but oddly soothing allegory about accepting the scary twists of love without turning on your one and only. Whether you’re single, dating, cohabiting, married, divorced, or anything in between, this emotionally satisfying memoir will reassure you that, when it comes to love, we’re all in the same leaky boat.
Havrilesky writes the popular “Ask Polly” advice column on Substack and is the author of What If This Were Enough?, How to Be a Person in the World, and Disaster Preparedness. She has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and NPR’s All Things Considered, among others, and maintains the “Ask Molly” newsletter, written by Polly’s evil twin.
Havrilesky will be in conversation with Leslie Jamison (FAN ’19), the New York Times bestselling author of two essay collections—The Empathy Exams and Make it Scream, Make it Burn—as well as a critical memoir, The Recovering, and a novel, The Gin Closet. A graduate of Harvard College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Jamison also graduated with her Ph.D. from Yale University.
This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on our website and YouTube channel.
Event Sponsors
- Beacon Academy
- Bennett Day School
- Catherine Cook School
- Christ Church Winnetka
- Compass Health Center
- Family Service Center
- Family Service of Glencoe
- Fusion Academy
- Lake Michigan Association of Independent Schools
- New Trier High School D203
- New Trier Parents’ Association
- North Shore Country Day
- Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy
- Regina Dominican College Preparatory High School
- Roycemore School
- Science & Arts Academy
- Stevenson High School D125
- The Alliance for Early Childhood
- Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart
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