"[Jeanne Safer] is honest, smart, brave, funny, and makes you thing about things you don't think about." - Peggy Noonan
"A deeply intelligent, fully informed and thoroughly welcome voice." - "New York Times Book Review," on "The Normal One: Life With a Difficult or Damaged Sibling"
"Jeanne Safer is like a best friend, a gifted therapist and an enchanting storyteller rolled into one. In a culture that romanticizes the idea of unconditional love, Safer reminds us that relationships are inherently contractual. Better yet, she shows is that it is within those contracts that genuine compassion and affection can truly--even ecstatically flourish. This book is both a warm fuzzy and a sharp kick in the pants. Don t let it far from your side." Meghan Daum, author of "The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion"
"[Jeanne Safer] is honest, smart, brave, funny, and makes you thing about things you don't think about." Peggy Noonan"
"Thought-provoking and deeply useful . . . For anyone dealing with the intense pain caused by unrequited love, false friendships, or romantic obsessions, this book offers comfort and solid coping strategies." "Publishers Weekly" (starred review)
Though the stories of jealously and embitterment are salaciously entertaining, Safer closes the collection with a section on fulfilled love. Perhaps most heartwarming is the chapter on late-life first marriage, which defies typical conventions of love as a young person's game and serves as an uplifting and optimistic ending to the woes and travails of love lost and regretted. Throughout the author's many different examples, her analysis is mostly Freudian-based (with additional credit to Heinz Kohut, "the founder of psychoanalytic self psychology"), and her insights are astute . A highly relatable collection of anecdotes that serves as a valuable crash course on the pitfalls, seductions, and rewards of love. "Kirkus Reviews"
"Jeanne Safer is like a best friend, a gifted therapist and an enchanting storyteller rolled into one. In a culture that romanticizes the idea of unconditional love, Safer reminds us that relationships are inherently contractual. Better yet, she shows is that it is within those contracts that genuine compassion and affection can truly--even ecstatically flourish. This book is both a warm fuzzy and a sharp kick in the pants. Don t let it far from your side." Meghan Daum, author of "The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion"
"[Jeanne Safer] is honest, smart, brave, funny, and makes you thing about things you don't think about." Peggy Noonan"
"We live in a time of paradox: As sexual and emotional arrangements become ever more complicated, our culture insists on recycling antiquated myths about what love "should" be rather than what it is. Deeply informed and intensely intimate, "The Golden Condom"is a unique and necessary contribution to the popular literature on modern relationships. Drawing on a lifetime of experience, Jeanne Safer puts forth a wise, expansive vision of romance in all its variations, reminding us that love is earned more commonly than it s found, and lasts even when it s gone." Kate Bolick, author of "Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own"
"Thought-provoking and deeply useful...For anyone dealing with the intense pain caused by unrequited love, false friendships, or romantic obsessions, this book offers comfort and solid coping strategies." "Publishers Weekly" (starred review)
Though the stories of jealously and embitterment are salaciously entertaining, Safer closes the collection with a section on fulfilled love. Perhaps most heartwarming is the chapter on late-life first marriage, which defies typical conventions of love as a young person's game and serves as an uplifting and optimistic ending to the woes and travails of love lost and regretted. Throughout the author's many different examples, her analysis is mostly Freudian-based (with additional credit to Heinz Kohut, "the founder of psychoanalytic self psychology"), and her insights are astute . A highly relatable collection of anecdotes that serves as a valuable crash course on the pitfalls, seductions, and rewards of love. "Kirkus Reviews"
"Jeanne Safer is like a best friend, a gifted therapist and an enchanting storyteller rolled into one. In a culture that romanticizes the idea of unconditional love, Safer reminds us that relationships are inherently contractual. Better yet, she shows is that it is within those contracts that genuine compassion and affection can truly--even ecstatically flourish. This book is both a warm fuzzy and a sharp kick in the pants. Don t let it far from your side." Meghan Daum, author of "The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion"
"[Jeanne Safer] is honest, smart, brave, funny, and makes you thing about things you don't think about." Peggy Noonan"
"Drawing on her own experiences as well as those of patients and friends, Safer meditates on love s most volatile and traumatic forms .The text also has a philosophical and literary aspect, weaving in quotes from Samuel Johnson and Samuel Beckett, for example, as well as offering personal reflections .The timelessness of the topic as well as its confessional, educational content will give "The Golden Condom "wide appeal anyone will be able to find themselves reflected in one story or another, whether they are in love, or longing, or looking to understand this mystifying, powerful, innately human experience." "Booklist"
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""""The Golden Condom" is one of those brilliant, generous, and captivating psychology books, that will almost certainly free readers from the limits they have unknowingly set for themselves." - Simon Van Booy, Author of "Father's Day" and "The Secret Lives of People in Love"
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"""We live in a time of paradox: As sexual and emotional arrangements become ever more complicated, our culture insists on recycling antiquated myths about what love "should" be rather than what it is. Deeply informed and intensely intimate, "The Golden Condom"is a unique and necessary contribution to the popular literature on modern relationships. Drawing on a lifetime of experience, Jeanne Safer puts forth a wise, expansive vision of romance in all its variations, reminding us that love is earned more commonly than it s found, and lasts even when it s gone." Kate Bolick, author of "Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own"
"Thought-provoking and deeply useful...For anyone dealing with the intense pain caused by unrequited love, false friendships, or romantic obsessions, this book offers comfort and solid coping strategies." "Publishers Weekly" (starred review)
Though the stories of jealously and embitterment are salaciously entertaining, Safer closes the collection with a section on fulfilled love. Perhaps most heartwarming is the chapter on late-life first marriage, which defies typical conventions of love as a young person's game and serves as an uplifting and optimistic ending to the woes and travails of love lost and regretted. Throughout the author's many different examples, her analysis is mostly Freudian-based (with additional credit to Heinz Kohut, "the founder of psychoanalytic self psychology"), and her insights are astute . A highly relatable collection of anecdotes that serves as a valuable crash course on the pitfalls, seductions, and rewards of love. "Kirkus Reviews"
"Jeanne Safer is like a best friend, a gifted therapist and an enchanting storyteller rolled into one. In a culture that romanticizes the idea of unconditional love, Safer reminds us that relationships are inherently contractual. Better yet, she shows is that it is within those contracts that genuine compassion and affection can truly--even ecstatically flourish. This book is both a warm fuzzy and a sharp kick in the pants. Don t let it far from your side." Meghan Daum, author of "The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion"
"[Jeanne Safer] is honest, smart, brave, funny, and makes you thing about things you don't think about." Peggy Noonan"