George & Hilly: The Anatomy of a Relationship

by George Gurley

Overview

A funny and intimate portrait of a relationshipgleaned from the author and his fianceé’s couple’s therapy sessions.

After roughly three-and-a-half years of dating his girlfriend Hilly, New York Observer nightlife and society reporter George Gurley decided that it was time to get married. Well, engaged. No rush. One day at a time. George had witnessed New York husbands —frail, meek, ashamed, and henpecked, pushing double wide strollers as their battle-ax wives babbled on about “dinner with friends”—and it wasn’t for him.

Enter Dr. Selman: psychiatrist, obliging listener, and unwitting participant in George’s own journalistic project—a no-holds-barred portrait of intimacy taken from transcripts of the couple’s therapy sessions. George can be compared to a Carrie Bradshaw 2.0; that is, if Carrie were a hard drinking, ill-reputed man-about-town writing frankly about sex, love, marriage, and his own psychological baggage.

Hilarious, thought-provoking, and compelling, George & Hilly reveals the uncensored, unselfconscious psyche of a man on the brink of matrimony.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439165447
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	01/03/2012
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	241
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

George Gurley is a contributing writer for the Observer, The New York Times, Town and Country, and Vanity Fair.

Editorial Reviews

A pleasure to read. As Huey Long said about himself, 'sui generis.' I can already see the marquee: GEORGE 'n' HILLY TONIGHT!" —Tom Wolfe

From the Publisher

An offbeat memoir of a quirky writer and his life with his fiancée. Journalist Gurley describes himself at various times as "neurotic, obsessive-compulsive [and] infantile-arrested" in this strange memoir of the six-plus years leading to his engagement to his girlfriend/fiancée, Hilly. In a series of therapy sessions with a Dr. Selman, Gurley and Hilly expose their foibles to each other, from their first sexual encounters to their heavy drinking to their inability to handle money and debt. Fearful of becoming one of the "castrati"--Gurley's interpretation of a married man--he does everything possible to avoid change, including late nights at the bar, chasing other women and "infantile rages and apocalyptic phobias." Although he refers to himself as a "kind of postmodern troll, like one of the fiends that chase you in dreams," Gurley does exhibit love and compassion toward Hilly, who is also portrayed with all her flaws. Despite his initial inability to commit, his anger and his self-absorption, Hilly remained a loyal partner, slowly wheedling away at Gurley's will to remain single. At times amusing, Gurley's stories may offend some readers with references to marriage as a "lifetime prison sentence, a ball and chain" and comments that blatantly objectify women as sex objects. Even taken as a parody of a couple in love, readers may shake their heads in unison with Dr. Selman, wondering why these two people stayed together through all their troubles. A farcical tale of two people loaded with emotional baggage who still manage to make their relationship work.

Kirkus Reviews