The Monogamy Prize (How an American in Paris Found Her Game)

A marriage memoir from the bestselling author of Bringing Up Bébé

On the eve of her fiftieth birthday, Pamela Drucker-man’s life has stalled. She was in her early thirties when she moved to Paris, married a dashing fellow journalist, and became a celebrated author. Yet now, it’s her husband who churns out a book a year and wears earplugs around the house. Her adolescent children are more French than American, and her Parisian neighbors haven’t gotten any more welcoming. Once a prolific writer, she has slipped in status to her family’s head of purchasing and quality control.

Tired of feeling unappreciated—and tempted by an unexpected offer from a man from her past—Druckerman decides to try on the famously flexible French approach to monogamy (“What is fidelity, really? . . . Isn’t it to be true to yourself?”).

She grants herself a one-off fiftieth birthday present: a secret afternoon with “the banker.” What ensues is more than she ever expected. Is this radical self-care or relationship suicide? Have honesty-obsessed Americans been approaching coupledom all wrong? Can an American in Paris ever truly become French?

The Monogamy Prize is a disarmingly intimate and deeply funny account of one woman’s passage and a bold exploration of the rules of modern marriage.