In Spite of Everything

“If you’ve been through the pain of a divorce or watched one at close range, you may recognize emotions here that you’ve never seen written down anywhere else….Thomas’ deeply felt prose and pitilessly intelligent self-analysis raise her story to something on the order of a generational anthem (which, as Gen X enters middle age, it sorely needs).”
—Time
  
“By turns hilarious and heartbreaking….As profound as it is rollickingly funny….What sets Susan Gregory Thomas’ In Spite of Everything apart from other tales of charred families is the propulsive force of her writing, and her effort to connect her parents’ divorce, and later her own, to a larger generational narrative….If you’ve ever thought about getting married, or wondered about how best to raise children, real or hypothetical, or had parents, put In Spite of Everything on your list.”
—Slate

“A lively narrative…[sprinkled] with broadening references to literature, religion, pop culture, and statistics….Let’s face it: It’s fascinating to watch a marriage unravel….Happily for us, [Thomas’s] pain and missteps, and the exploration and enlightenment they provoke, make for a page-turning saga.”
—Elle
 
“Razor-sharp….If Generation X is not unique in suffering; its particular suffering is unique, and Thomas provides an insightful, well-researched, sometimes funny and often harrowing view of it.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Raw and courageous….A memoir that speaks intimately, and with honesty, for an entire generation that needed to be heard.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Raw, funny, searingly honest and electrifyingly intelligent . . . As a field guide to the beat-up, busted heart of Generation X, it’s damn near definitive. Thomas solves the mystery of her devastating divorce—and the emotional catastrophe that defines a generation.”—Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians
 
“This smart and emotionally mighty memoir will show you how every family of divorce is unhappy in ways we can all relate to, learn from, cry about, and (after reading such a great book) transcend. Sad and funny, In Spite of Everything is the first book to dissect, with scientific definitiveness, the Busted-Marriage Generation. It also tells a very moving personal story with real beauty.”—Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life 
 
“At once a literate and poignant memoir and incisive journalistic illumination of the cult of domestic consumption, In Spite of Everything is a remarkable and moving study of an American generation’s uneasy search for home.”—Wells Tower, author of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
 
“Honest, riveting and illuminating . . . An indelible portrait, not only of a family, but of an entire generation shaped by loneliness. Breathtakingly beautiful from start to finish.”—Lisa Dierbeck, author of One Pill Makes You Smaller
 
“This book is brave, startling, profoundly moving, and I could not put it down.”—Joanna Hershon, author of Swimming
 
“In In Spite of Everything, Susan Gregory Thomas goes way beyond American pop culture’s cute, run-of-the-mill bromides about marriage and parenting and gives us a work that’s shot through with a stark and clarifying light of honesty. It is an inspiring book—and an often uproariously funny one, too. In Spite of Everything establishes Susan Gregory Thomas as one of the most important new voices in American writing.”—Jeff Gordinier, author of X Saves the World

“Engrossing . . . A deeply moving and personal tale of divorce, love, motherhood, and what makes us who we are.”—Marian Fontana, author of A Widow’s Walk
 
“Harrowing, hilarious, and profoundly wise . . . [In Spite of Everything] is the work of a supreme talent and an emotional daredevil, a woman courageous enough to reveal every scar that lines her heart.”—Brendan I. Koerner, author of Now the Hell Will Start

“As a memoir, In Spite of Everything is both raw and smart; as a generational analysis, it is spot on—culturally, economically and psychologically. This is an engaging and fast-paced memoir . . . and a generational portrait for those who refuse to be categorized.”—Lisa Chamberlain, author of Slackonomics
 
“In Spite of Everything is a profound emotional history of the last forty years. Susan Gregory Thomas is the expert on Generation X’s emotional fallout. All recovering latchkey kids should read this book.”—Ada Calhoun, author of Instinctive Parenting