After having endured enough emotional wreckage in her search for true love to fill a book (the New York Times bestseller The Between Boyfriends Book), two magazine columns, and five seasons of scripts for Sex and the City, Cindy Chupack finally, mercifully, at the age of thirty-nine, met the Perfect Man.
He did not seem to Cindy like the Perfect Man. Ian, with his bad-boy ways, struck her as someone whom she absolutely did not want as a husband, but he soon proved his worth with wit, warmth, a series of spectacularly cooked meals, and a marriage proposal made on a beautiful beach, the prospective groom perched heroically on a white stallion.
Unable to resist the romance, Cindy married him and settled in contentedly for the long and gratifying happily ever after...or so she thought. Being a wife, Cindy discovers soon enough, is not so different from being a girlfriend, only now you have a permanent houseguest. Ian’s endearing quirks became impossible-to-ignore and slightly irksome habits; what was once charming adventurousness now seems like recklessness (just why was he rappelling down the side of a building on a garden hose?); and his impossibly big heart has space enough for an impossibly big dog, a St. Bernard that looks, as Cindy realizes once it has taken possession of her home, “like a person in a dog suit.” And then there’s all his stuff.
The Longest Date is the wonderfully funny, and ultimately, deeply moving story of a marriage, of the daily negotiations and accommodations about matters like cooking, holidays, space, money, and sex that every (newly or otherwise) wedded couple faces in the course of figuring out exactly who they are together and where they are headed. Cindy and Ian’s own ongoing courtship takes a surprising turn when they decide to have a baby—a plan that turns out to be far more complicated than they ever could have anticipated and that tests and strengthens their love for each other.
The perfect companion for anyone navigating a marriage (or even just contemplating one), The Longest Date marks the welcome return of one of our most gifted and captivating comic writers.
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“Chupack gifts readers with an inside look at her messy marriage in a memoir that is alternately laugh-out-funny and surprisingly poignant…Chupack is so upfront about her emotions that she quickly becomes more an old friend than ‘the author’…Chupack is most compelling, however, when she focuses on the ordinary hard truths of coupledom. She talks man caves, old flames, and uneven earning potential and ponders the allure of bad boys, the acquisition of a pet, and blending households. Chupack’s engaging page-turner is a natural for book clubs, and there’s already talk of a TV series.”
— Booklist
“Amusing…The collection is a nice read for a general audience—and especially for those who enjoyed Chupack’s work on television shows such as Sex in the City, Everyone Loves Raymond, and Coach and magazines such as Glamour and O, The Oprah Magazine.”
— Publishers Weekly“A straight-talking, funny, and poignant memoir.”
— Kirkus Reviews“The characters on Sex and the City (for which Cindy Chupack wrote) could never wait to get together and share the most scintillating details of their romantic triumphs and tribulations. Opening Cindy’s book is like getting invited to lunch with those women—the details are keenly observed, laugh-out-loud funny, and you never want the meal to end.”
— Cynthia Nixon, actress“If you need a new best friend—look no further! Cindy Chupack’s wonderful book will make you laugh, cry, and feel less alone.”
— Winnie Holzman, actress“Cindy’s essays are dizzyingly good…Marriage is laid bare, negotiations, passion, uncertain leveraging, children, dogs, and even boob jobs are all covered with affection and brutal honesty.”
— Julia Sweeney, actressBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Cindy Chupack has won three Golden Globes and an Emmy for her work as a writer/executive producer of HBO’s Sex and the City. She also wrote for Everybody Loves Raymond, Coach, and a bunch of series only her parents would watch. She has written about dating and relationships for many magazines and had her own column in Glamour and O, The Oprah Magazine. She lives in Los Angeles.