“We are all so curious. Hungry for the truth. If only we could ask the questions we really want to ask of each other and get the real answers. Like how many times a month do you have sex? What prescription drugs are you on? Are you happy? Really happy? Happy enough?”
For anybody who has ever wondered privately Is this all there is, Melanie Gideon’s poignant, hilarious, exuberant meditation, The Slippery Year, chronicles a year in which she confronts both the fantasies of her receding youth and the realities of midlife with a husband, a child, and a dog (one of whom runs away). She reflects on the exigencies of domesticity—the need for a household catastrophe plan, the fainting spell occasioned by the departure of her nine-year-old son for camp, the mattress wars, and the carpool line. With tenderness, unsparing honesty, and uproarious wit, Gideon brings us back again and again to the sweetness of ordinary pleasures and to life’s most enduring satisfactions. She captures perfectly that moment right before everything changes and the things we have loved forever begin to fall away for the first time.
The Slippery Year is the story of a woman’s quest to reignite passion, beauty, and mystery and discover if “happily ever after” is a possibility after all.
Buy the book at your favorite independent bookseller here.
Or at Amazon here.
16 Comments
August 25, 2009 at 3:13 am
On my nightstand….The Slippery Year. This book is an absolute delight! Melanie tells her tale insightful tale in a Ephron/Bombeck style that has caused this reader to laugh-out-loud on almost every page.
I look forward to more great reads from this author.
Well done Melanie and thankyou for writing such a wonderful book!
August 29, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Thank you, Carol!
September 2, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Melanie,
I would LOVE to give away your book on my blog! Can you please connect me to your publicist? Thanks so much.
P.S. Just had my first week without my nine-year-old this August… It was much harder for me than I’d anticipated. Yikes.
September 20, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Hi Rachel. My publicist is Andrea Bussell at Knopf, abussell@randomhouse.com. I’m sure she’d be happy to give you a book for a blog giveaway. Nice to hear from you!
September 7, 2009 at 3:17 am
Hi Melanie
I’m finishing reading the book tonight. After hearing your interview on NPR, I had to go out and pick up a copy.
I was expecting a “How to restore your relationship with yourself” kind of book, but took a lot more from it. I’m the 41 year old dad who has to sit in the line to pickup his 4 year old daughter. It was a blessing to know that so many others are wondering the same questions that I am, especially “Is this all there is”.
I read one time that it is easy to love your spouse, but not always easy to like them. I found that to be illustrated in your book very nicely.
And so I go through my “Slippery half decade”, but with the two women I have found the most love in, by my side.
Thanks so much for the comforting words and sharing your views..
David
October 8, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I am only half through this book but am head over heels in love. Our lives are very different (I’m an amputee mom with four kids who lives in New York) but so very much the same. The best praise I can give to you is that I find myself reading excerpts to my husband as we lay in bed and he is trying to watch TV. It’s something that really bugs him but he is patient and plays along, so I try to only do it with really GREAT passages from GREAT books. It’s happening every night since I’ve started your book.
Can’t wait to read your next project. Write on!
Judy
justonefoot.blogspot.com
October 12, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Melanie-
I read your book cover-to-cover yesterday and probably drove my husband nuts because I kept pausing the tv shows he was watching to read him excerpts. I’m recommending all my friends read this! I love your honesty and your writing style is beautiful. Our lives are so similar (bay area, one son, questioning committment to husband, etc.) that I would wonder how you got into my head as I was reading! Loved it.
October 22, 2009 at 11:56 am
Hi Melanie,
I LOVED your book! I read it in 2 days and laughed out loud at so many parts. I saw myself in a lot of your thoughts, saying “I think that way too!” I can’t wait to read more of your work.
Christine
Boston, MA
November 27, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Picked up this book from the “new releases” shelf in my local library, never having heard of it, nor you.
I finished it last night (found it hard to put down) and absolutely loved it.
It provided more proof to me that underneath the personas we present to the world, we’re all very similar. Thanks for writing this! I’ll be sure to tell others about it.
January 3, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Melanie,
Get out of my head! You could have been ghostwriting for me, lol. Enjoyed it very much, thank you for the laugh out loud read. Great way to start 2010.
February 9, 2010 at 2:33 pm
THIS BOOK STICKS TO MEE, I JUST CAN’T BE FREED OF IT! REREADING HELPS MANAGING DAILY LIFE WITH MORE EASE! PLEASE MELANIE DON’T STOP WRITING THERE IS MORE! AND THANKS SHARING IT! SUSAN
May 19, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Hi Melanie,
I just finished ‘The Slippery Year’ and loved it! I could relate to so many parts- we have only one child, I don’t cook too much either. But buying the bed part was the best! I too never slept well until I went downstairs and slept in the spare room. Well, let me tell you it was Heaven! I finally remembered what it was like to sleep! Needless to say I spend many a night sleeping alone and we have been together for 30 years now, so I guess it works! I have since spoken to many others and find the same exact situation! Your book just flowed, I couldn’t put it down and I am sure everyone that is married or has children can relate to it. Thank you and please write more for us! Sincerely, Jill
June 2, 2010 at 1:52 am
Oh my gosh, if only I was clever enough to write down what I thought that is exactly how I would of liked to have said it… thank you for brightening up my winter in Central Otago, New Zealand, I have giggled so much in the last couple of days,laughed out loud, mostly in hysterical relief that I’m not the only one… and raved to my friends about The Slippery Year and I can’t imagine I will find another book I will love as much for a very long time…
August 21, 2009 at 5:28 pm
It’s a memoir!
August 25, 2009 at 11:30 pm
This is the most fantastic book. Could not put it down. Especially the part about camp (I sent my 10 year old son this summer w/o a phone and he filched his roomate’s Mom’s cell phone and then called her in Marin to figure out how to dial San Mateo). Thanks to you and kudos to your family for being brave enough to put forth your story. Prescient observations with witty commentary. Loved it. With appreciation and much admiration.
August 29, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Now that’s an enterprising ten-year-old! Thank you for your comments