COMMITMENTS: Intimate Stories of Love That Lasts

Interviews with satisfied couples--on the premise that we've all heard more than enough about marriages and other relationships that don't work. Even assuming you buy the premise, this is pretty deadly stuff: ordinary people--largely middle-class and Canadian--talking about ordinary lives. To be sure, the author makes some effort to include the out-of-the-way: people who had bad first or second marriages and are now recovering with the ""right"" person; homosexual couples who are stable and domestically inclined; partners who have survived (or even welcomed) the ravages of the extramarital affair with their ""loyalty"" to each other intact. (Thus, we meet a woman whose husband is two decades older and sexually incapable; but she insists, despite her flings, that she's devoted to him.) The depth of interview and analysis is best exemplified by wrap-up statements like ""Carrie and Vincent feel their marriage has made them freer"" or ""They have been lucky in their lives and in their choice of each other."" Few will be informed by this, fewer still inspired.