Good in a crisis A memoir

Anesthesiologist Overton appears to be very good in a crisis. She is certainly skilled at crafting a diverting memoir. But she is not good at identifying a good man. Still, a person can't be good at everything. She is also a respected physician who has, by her own account, raised two well-adjusted daughters and who keeps her middle-aged body fit via bicycling. However, when it comes to selecting male companionship, she proves again and again and, uh, again that her radar or sonar or common sense is off-line, down due to a disconnect between hope and reality. To help overcome the negative effects of a 20-year marriage that ended in a bitter divorce, Overton began journaling. She chronicled not just the I'll-get-you-before-you-get-me revelations about her philandering ex but also her several less-than-successful experiences with cyberdating and vacation romance. Even though twenty-first-century America asserts the opposite, it took her a very long time to get it through her head that a woman can be OK without a mate.--Chavez, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

In this smart and clear-eyed narrative of one woman's midlife divorce, Chicago anesthesiologist Overton writes of how she and her surgeon husband of nearly 20 years drifted into mutual emotional apathy (he was having an affair, it turned out, and not for the first time) and decided to divorce in 2002, precipitating for her a long, unlovely withdrawal of trust in men. The divorce would turn rancorous and head to court-for reasons not fully explained-as their two daughters, at 16 and 19, were nearly grown and it seemed a "hyperbolic meanness" had gripped the couple. Overton writes frankly of the "collateral damage" the whole enterprise wrought on the people around her, from the hurtful way she treated others to the crazy purchases she made and the wrongheaded belief that she would replace her spouse and sex partner in the space of a few months. In the last endeavor, she tried mightily to find a new companion on the Internet, having been told this was the only way to meet a man in her mid-40s, and a good bit of her engaging narrative involves dates with unsavory specimens. Overton managed to overcome her many trials as she imparts with humor and some high-handed poise. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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