A compelling book that can serve anyone looking to tie the knot once more.
A field guide to the emotional labyrinth of remarriage.
Remarriage is the odd man out in research and family therapy; only in recent years, with divorce rates on the rise, has it begun to garner any sustained attention in scientific circles. In the 1990s, Scarf (September Songs: The Good News About Marriage in the Later Years, 2009, etc.) began research into the subject, but when she began interviewing couples using a “remarriage journey” framework, the study fell apart; there was too much disparity in couples not being at the same point on the “journey.” Returning to the subject years later, the author began working with an architecture metaphor, based on an uppermost “level” of five challenges. The first is the challenge of navigating the push and pull of insider/outsider forces, the insiders being the family structure already in place and the outsider being the new wife or husband. The second challenge is the feelings, both positive and negative, of those children toward the new partner and how that affects feelings toward the now “outside” parent. The third challenge comes through the intensity of new parenting roles and how to define them and redefine them. The fourth and fifth: the challenge of uniting two disparate family cultures and the expansion of the family boundaries—new siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. Underlying these challenges are the interpersonal skills the couple is able to bring to bear on navigating those challenges and also the emotional and relational “baggage” carried over from the all-too-often acrimonious split of the previous marriage. After laying out the strategies for navigating these challenges, the author devotes more than half the book to case studies, which drive home the strategies in genuine, relatable ways. It also helps that the study couples were people she worked with in the 1990s; the many years since serve to provide even more insight.
A compelling book that can serve anyone looking to tie the knot once more.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4391-6953-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
The experiment could be a useful one, though it will darken the hearts of the dark lords—a winning argument all its own.
In a book whose title says it all, technoprophet Lanier (Dawn of the New Everything, 2017, etc.) weighs in against predatory technoprofit.
In a world of dogs, it’s better to be a cat. So, in this brief polemic, writes the author, who uses the animal terms advisedly: Dogs are easily trained to respond to stimuli, as Ivan Pavlov knew; humans are as easily trained, à la B.F. Skinner, when given proper rewards. “Dog whistles,” Lanier adds meaningfully, “can only be heard by dogs.” Cats, on the other hand, live in the world while somehow not being quite of it, a model for anyone seeking to get out of the grasp of algorithms and maybe go outside for a calming walk. The metaphor has value. So does the acronym BUMMER, which Lanier coins to sum up the many pieces of his argument: “Behavior of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent.” It’s a little clunky, but the author scores points with more direct notes: “E,” he writes, “is for Earning money from letting the worst assholes secretly screw with everyone else.” As we’re learning from the unfolding story of Cambridge Analytica, which just filed for bankruptcy, he’s got a point. Lanier advocates untethering from social media, which fosters addiction and anomie and generally makes us feel worse and more fearful about each other and the world. Continuing the dog metaphor, it—Lanier uses “media” as a singular noun, which, considering its monolithic nature, may no longer send grammarians screaming—also encourages pack behavior, howling at strangers and sounds in the night. His central objection, though, would seem to be this: “We have enshrined the belief that the only way to finance a connection between two people is through a third person who is paying to manipulate them.” If we accept that, then it’s self-evident why one would want to unplug.
The experiment could be a useful one, though it will darken the hearts of the dark lords—a winning argument all its own.Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-19668-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-informed, scary, sobering, and sure to tick off police officers and prosecutors even as it contributes to keeping...
Building on his much-viewed YouTube video “Don’t Talk to the Police,” former criminal defense attorney and legal scholar Duane (Regent Univ. School of Law) offers a cogent, concise argument for keeping silent.
Why is it, asks the author, that public officials who are being questioned so often invoke their constitutional right not to self-incriminate? Because they know the law. More to the point, he suggests, they know the many ways in which all-too-human investigators can misinterpret and twist words—and that the system is fundamentally corrupt to begin with. Though the last bit may be cynical, Duane means it without hyperbole: on any given day, an American adult breaks three laws without even knowing that he or she has done so, very often as a result of unforeseen consequences of good intentions. “That is why,” Duane writes, “you cannot listen to your conscience when faced by a police officer and think, I have nothing to hide.” If the law is corrupt, then so are law enforcement officers, not necessarily out of evil intent but because they have quotas to fulfill, performance evaluations to meet, and so on—and because, increasingly, there’s an us-against-the-world mentality governing the precinct house. So what to do? Duane counsels common sense, noting that there are reasons and situations that call for cooperating with the police. If, however, there’s the remotest chance that suspicion will fall on you, he adds, then it’s a good idea to think Fifth (and Sixth) Amendment and to remember that, thanks to Antonin Scalia’s influence on the Supreme Court, it’s no longer possible to believe that “only guilty people would ever knowingly refuse to talk to the police,” even if the police and the courts seem to think so.
Well-informed, scary, sobering, and sure to tick off police officers and prosecutors even as it contributes to keeping innocent people out of jail.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3339-2
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Little A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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