From This Day Forward

Rating:
Summary: A salute to love and marriage---American style!
Review: In her #1 New York Times bestseller, We Are Our Mothers Daughters, Cokie Roberts, co-anchor of ABC's This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts, examined the nature of women's roles, from mother to mechanic, sister to soldier through the illuminating lens of personal experience. Written with her characteristic disarming humor and affectionate intelligence, Cokie created an instant classic that hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list where it remained for an astounding 26 weeks. Now, Cokie, who has been hailed by USA Today as a "custodian of time-honored values" joins forces with her husband of thirty-three years, political analyst and college professor Steve Roberts with FROM THIS DAY FORWARD an in-depth look at the institution of marriage, American-style. Part chronicle of their own courtship, marriage and family life, and part social/historical examination of marriage as an institution, FROM THIS DAY FORWARD uses the Roberts' personal stories as a springboard for discussing larger issues of love and marriage, work and family, parents and children. The book addresses such questions as: how in an age in which 50% of all marriages fail, why does the idea of marriage still endure, and what makes for ties that truly bind? Is it possible for marriage to flourish in a fractured culture in which families live thousands of miles apart? As the generations-old gate-keepers of family, religion and community fade away, what will take their place as the safeguards and strongholds of marriage? These issues and more are at the heart of this compelling look at the state of our unions.

Told in both Cokie's and Steve's words, FROM THIS DAY FORWARD offers a fascinating, intimate portrait of their own journey together, from their courtship in the early 1960's-a time when people married right out of college as a matter of course-through their days overseas, balancing two careers and the demands of family in the turbulent 1970's, to their status today as "long-marrieds" with married children of their own. They reveal candid snapshots of their relationship-from how they fell in love, to how they approached parenting with two careers, to how they worked through the conflicting desires and expectations that test every marriage.

Cokie and Steve also share stories of other American marriages: pioneers, slaves, immigrants, and Holocaust survivors. There is also a look at the surprising marriage of John and Abigail Adams, whose letters to each other reveal painful absences, heartbreaking tragedies, warm entreaties and wickedly funny, blisteringly honest exchanges. These extraordinary accounts show the universality of marriage-that cultural forces may change, but affairs of the heart do not.

FROM THIS DAY FORWARD celebrates modern marriage with all its glories and flaws and turns a warm, embracing spotlight on the issues confronting today's couples who are determined to have and to hold from this day forward. As Cokie and Steve conclude, "Marriage is an act of faith, as well as hope...an unlimited commitment to an unknowable partner." Filled with sage advice and written in a winning, fireside-chat style, FROM THIS DAY FORWARD is ultimately the story of all husbands and wives, the way they support each other and yet continue to grow and change as individuals.

Rating:
Summary: It takes a narcissist
Review: It takes a narcissist of tremendous proportions to foist this scrapbook off on an unsuspecting public. On the plus side, Cokie Roberts does more than her usual cut and paste from the work of others in From This Day Forward. When not pulling from the work of others, Cokie (and the compliant Steve) offer up tidbits that are supposed to inform the reader how s/he too can have a great marriage.
Apparently the basic rule for a successful marriage is to live in your own little world the way kooky Cokie does. I doubt she realizes how racist she comes off in parts of the book. (Yes, Cokie, condescension is a form of racism.) Or how laughable most will find her book. Reading of the great "trauma" of her life, you realize this is someone who hasn't experienced many character building moments in her life. The great "trauma"? Learning that her new employer wouldn't provide a limo and that Cokie would have to take taxis around NYC. Oh, the horror! Oh, the shame! How did Cokie ever survive?
(Had she been told to take the subway, one gets the impression Roberts would have called it quits right then.)
A vapid celebration of what appears to be a vapid marriage isn't necessarily shocking -- what's shocking is that Cokie (and husband Steve) put their names to it. Had a child offered this slight volume as a souvenir to a wedding anniversary, we all would have "oooh"ed and "aaaawe"d over it. But for grownups to write such a book about themselves is the height of narcissism.
The book works best as anthropological study of When Gigantic Egos Mate.

Rating:
Summary: You'll enjoy this book. You'll laugh and you'll cry over it.
Review: This is refreshing book about two respected journalists, radio and TV personalities and their lives, their family relationships, marriage, children, backgrounds and parents. But, they add to the book's interest by cleverly weaving into the fabric, historical research, stories about other couples in other times and situations ranging from the colonial period, to the life-and-death struggles of African American slaves, homesteaders of the American wild west, and European immigrants escaping the holocaust. The authors have used a unusual conversational dialog style, with occasional interruptions, as would be when couples talk, and the dialog includes many of Cokie's sharp-witted and hilarious one liners. As they juxtapose their own Cokie and Steve paragraphs, you feel as if you are listening in. This book will be popular for the same reasons as "Forest Gump" was popular. Steve and Cokie let you into their thoughts and lives with a seldom-achieved wit, style, and clarity. And they do it with panache, avoiding the embarrasing intimacy of a revealing "tell-all"---President Clinton's paramours might benefit from a writing course from Professor Roberts. You won't want to put the book down, and you'll want to hug your mate or your best friend after you finish. Its easy to recognize, and to laugh and to cry about many of the anecdotes the Roberts describe, especially if you are in Cokie and Steve's generation, or are, or have been married, or have had children, or travelled abroad, or lived far away from family.