Cultural critic Roiphe delves deeply into one of the most layered of subjects: marriage. Drawn in part from the private memoirs, personal correspondence, and long-forgotten journals of the British literary community from 1910 to the Second World War, here are seven "marriages à la mode"--each rising to the challenge of intimate relations in more or less creative ways: H.G. and Jane Wells; Katherine Mansfield; Vera Brittain and George Gordon Catlin; Vanessa and Clive Bell; and Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf, herself no stranger to marital particularities, who sustained a brilliant running commentary on the most intimate details of those around her. Every chapter revolves around a crisis that occurred in each of these marriages, and how it was resolved--or not. In these portraits, Roiphe evokes "the fluctuations and shifts in attraction, the mysteries of lasting affection, the endurance and changes in love, and the role of friendship in marriage."--From publisher description.