Book Bag: Crazy Love

by Leslie Morgan Steiner

“Crazy Love” is generating crazy buzz all over the country. What starts as a silken narrative of the good life in New York City quickly devolves into a nightmare in which Ms. Steiner finds herself in thrall to and in a marriage with a man whom she literally loves almost to death. After three years, countless punches, and an astonishing range of attacks, she recovers herself, following an incident that left her almost dead.

Now a happily married mother and executive, her personal story is also an everywoman tale: what happened to her could happen to any woman of any race or class. But it is especially shocking in this case that it happened to this daughter of an old-money family, with Harvard degrees going back generations.

What is most profound about the book is her insight into the family dynamics that allow such tragedies. Her husband, Conor, was consistently and severely beaten, a key factor in creating abusers. What Ms. Steiner experienced in divorce court was another assault. Her crisp, clear account of it all makes for a memoir with the pacing of a thriller.

“Crazy Love” by Leslie Morgan Steiner
St. Martin’s Press, 325 pages, $24.95