I'm No Saint: A Nasty Little Memoir of Love and Leaving by Elizabeth Hayt

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With ruthless honesty, Hayt documents the sudden puncture of her marriage; her almost innumerable flirtations, seductions, and extramarital affairs; her cocaine-fueled nightlife; and her bouts with cosmetic surgery and motherhood. Apparently, Hayt survived all these challenges without sacrificing her writing ability. I'm No Saint is a titillating, tantalizing, ultimately cautionary tale.

From the Publisher

Elizabeth Hayt embarked upon holy matrimony with reservations. Once there, she found herself drowning in an ocean of wifely and motherly duties, and at 35, felt there had to be more to life. But she was terrified when her husband called it quits. She responded by ricocheting from one high-powered man to another in a post-marital celebration of dating that rivals anything Samantha Jones had to offer. From stripteases before media moguls to attempts at reaching the emotional cores of Manhattan’s most lusted-after bachelors, Elizabeth rebels against her Great Neck roots, Ivy League education, and Upper East Side trappings as she delights in revealing the sex lives of true players and sexual politics of New York. In the end, she finds a way to reconcile her bad-girl desires with her good-girl upbringing and defy the predictable expectations of wife- and motherhood.

Publishers Weekly

What keeps the reader's interest from page one of this fiery memoir is not the explicit sex scenes or the family drama, but an admiration for Hayt's sheer chutzpah in jumping into life headfirst. Now in her mid-40s, the author, who writes for the New York Times, among other publications, considers no detail sacred as she recounts her failed marriage (she was 35 when she and her husband separated; 43 when they finalized the divorce), and her numerous subsequent sex partners, cosmetic surgery and trials as a mother and emerging writer and art critic. While it may be hard for some to respect a person whose activities are fueled not only by desire but also by drugs, Hayt's honesty about her struggles as a woman who married early without a chance to discover her own path in life will resonate with many. As Hayt hits bottom with an addiction to cocaine, a love lost and a master's thesis due, she wonders if "anyone else was as sick of listening to me as I was." Luckily for readers, Hayt decided to pursue her dream of writing with a passion she once directed toward her love of excess. This memoir will speak to women who have taken on society's role as "wife, mother, and teacher" only to feel as though they were "passive concessions to someone else's expectations." Agent, Daniel Greenberg. (Oct. 18) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

If this breezy account of one woman's sexual escapades were a film, it would definitely be rated NC-17. Hayt, a fashion writer for the New York Times, goes public about her private parts, not to mention those of her various premarital, marital and extramarital partners. She begins with her wedding, declaring that "it felt like the start of a long prison sentence," then flashes back to her days as a promiscuous teenager. Predictably, marriage to the unadventurous Charlie foundered within a few years, and Hayt's search for adulterous sexual fulfillment began. At 32, she got pregnant by another man and had an abortion; by the time she was 34, she and Charlie had separated. Still supported by her estranged husband, newly renovated by Botox injections, dermabrasion, plastic surgery and breast implants, she launched herself at a series of men: the art dealer who left his shoes on during sex and had cold, green reptilian eyes; the media mogul with an aversion to bathing; the billionaire politico who was a lousy kisser; the right-wing oil magnate who wore lizard-skin footwear. Guessing their identities should give readers some amusement. In addition to blind dates and chance encounters, Hayt tried finding men through personal ads in the New York Observer, at her synagogue and in the men's department at Bergdorf Goodman; the results were frequently disastrous and, as told here, extremely funny. Her excruciatingly detailed play-by-plays of her sexual antics are not so amusing, and it comes as no surprise that her husband, on the verge of a reconciliation as the narrative nears its end, changed his mind after reading her tell-all manuscript. A nasty little memoir of sex and self-indulgence, forthose eager for some upscale titillation.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0641852290
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641852299
• Format: Hardcover, 293pp
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Pub. Date: October 2005
• Edition Description: Bargain
• Sales Rank: 53,818