Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner

From Barnes & Noble

For thousands of radiant brides, dreams of permanent honeymoon bliss dissolve rapidly into nightmares of abuse. Leslie Morgan Steiner, the author of Mommy Wars, returns with an affecting memoir that reenacts her own steady descent into a marital hell of physical and emotional abuse. Crazy Love relates how Steiner struggled with the realization that the husband she truly loved was destroying her life. This cautionary tale holds special power because it forever dispels the myth the nice girls from good families don't wind up in growing quagmires of domestic muck.

From the Publisher

At twenty-two, Leslie Morgan Steiner seemed to have it all: a Harvard diploma, a glamorous job at Seventeen magazine, a downtown New York City apartment. Plus a handsome, funny, street-smart boyfriend who adored her. But behind her facade of success, this golden girl hid a dark secret. She"d made a mistake shared by millions: She fell in love with the wrong person.

At first Leslie and Conor seemed as perfect together as their fairy-tale wedding. Then came the fights she tried to ignore: He pushed her down the stairs of the house they bought together, poured coffee grinds over her hair as she dressed for a critical job interview, choked her during an argument, and threatened her with a gun. Several times he came close to making good on his threat to kill her. With each attack, Leslie lost another piece of herself.

Gripping and utterly compelling, Crazy Love takes you inside the violent, devastating world of abusive love. Conor said he"d been abused since he was a young boy, and love and rage danced intimately together in his psyche. Why didn't Leslie leave? She stayed because she loved him. Find out for yourself if she had fallen truly in love - or into a psychological trap.

EB - Library Journal

Steiner, a fresh Harvard graduate and new hire at Seventeen magazine, met a handsome young Wall Street trader riding the subway home. Nearly a year later-five days before her wedding-he reveals his penchant for battery when he slaps her for swearing at her computer. After two years of enduring his beatings and humiliations, she finally realizes that though she loves him, she can't help him overcome his violent childhood. The internal process of divorcing him and moving on takes much longer. Steiner's is an eye-opening, moving journey, told with candor, self-forgiveness, and grace. For abuse survivors everywhere.

Kirkus Reviews

Washington Post columnist Steiner (editor: Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families, 2006) shares the painful story of her abusive marriage. With a degree from Harvard, a job at Seventeen and an apartment in Manhattan, 22-year-old Steiner was ready to start her life anew after overcoming her substance-abuse problems from her teen years. When she met handsome, charming Conor, a 31-year-old investment banker, she fell hard. On a trip home to an affluent Washington, D.C., suburb to meet her divorcing parents, Conor picked a fight, furious that Steiner grew up in such a "perfect" place while he was beaten by his stepfather in working-class Boston. Although she was wary of his temper, Steiner was too in love and too sympathetic about Conor's past to be anything but relieved when they made up days later. When he half-choked her during sex and whispered "I own you," she was frightened but chalked it up to kinkiness. Days before their wedding, Conor slapped her when she swore at their malfunctioning laptop, but Steiner's fear and doubts were silenced by the avalanche of seemingly irreversible wedding preparations. In steady, intimate prose punctuated by surprising, refreshing streaks of humor, the author describes how the violence escalated, including an incident in which Conor pressed a gun to her temple. Especially enlightening is Steiner's discussion with a professor whose focus is abusive men. After a summer apart for business-school internships, Conor kept his promise not to hit her again-until one violent night when he smashed a picture frame over her head, kicked her in the ribs and strangled her until she lost consciousness. Steinerfinally left, even though "leaving meant abandoning . . . the best part of me, that part that was not afraid to love unconditionally."This courageous, empowering survival story brings the phrase "battered woman" into terrifying focus. Agent: Alice Martell/Alice Martell Agency

Product Details

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

“If you and I met at one of our children's birthday parties, in the hallway at work, or at a neighbor's barbecue, you'd never guess my secret: that as a young woman I fell in love with and married a man who beat me regularly and nearly killed me. I was always tensed for my next mistake, his next attack. The only person I was hiding the truth from was myself.” – from Crazy Love