Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness, is former House & Garden editor Dominique Browning’s beautifully written, despite its meandering, memoir that reminded me of a literary, middle-aged version of Sex and the City.
In Slow Love, the role of Mr. Big is played by a man Browning refers to as “Stroller.” Stroller is clearly relationally challenged, so as I read the memoir of a smart, chic, funny, lovely writer, editor, mother, gardener, cancer survivor, I couldn’t help but think: What the hell does she see in him?
Even though Browning eventually wound up in Rhode Island, happy, writing for A-list magazines, Slow Love bummed me out. Or rather, Browning’s relationship with Stroller bummed me out. If a woman like Dominique Browning can’t create a sound relationship with a sane, available, likable man, what hope have I?
The memoir starts out promising. Browning dishes on the Conde Nast(y) climate without name-dropping. Her humor and honesty throughout the book and her skill as a writer swept me along, kept me reading and got me thinking. Browning’s story touches on universal themes of love, loss, parenting and the realities of the current economic crisis. And she makes a strong case for Brooks Brothers pajamas.
Join the Slow Love discussion on BlogHer.com: http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/now-reading-slow-love.
