[reblogged from Spare Ammo]

Finished this a while ago and never got around to a review. 2.5 stars- not because of the writing (not as well written as Howard imagines) or because of a riveting memoir of love and passion (very little love for anyone but herself) but because I would encourage anyone who thinks they should accomplish or should have accomplished more in their life to read this book.

It will make you realize that all the money, all the advantages, all the important people that one woman has or had did not prevent her from a life of avoiding a good education, avoiding responsibility for her actions, avoiding a career, avoiding anything that basically didn’t “entertain” her as much as possible, and also that you have probably accomplished more in a year than Howard did in a lifetime.

What I took away from this book was that Howard, who shows herself to be an unhappy and unpleasant woman with an undeserved sense of entitlement, desperately wants to be known for what she thinks she has accomplished and not for being “Ann Landers” daughter”, but since she spent her life avoiding doing as much as possible she is doomed to disappointment.

It is a “feel good” book if ever there was one because waking up every day not being Margo Howard makes me feel good, bet after reading this you’ll feel good, too.

New blog on Howard's marriage-by-marriage account of her life.

"There was something else about my column that was unusual:  my stuff went straight to the Tribune lawyers to be vetted. Dr. David Reuben, for example, author of Everything  You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), threatened to sue me if I ever wrote about him again. All I had said was that his Q & A format read like a cross between Helen Gurley Brown and Popular Mechanics, that I found his to be a cutesy-Kinsey approach, and that his competitiveness with other authors regarding sales struck me as unseemly"-  Margo Howard, Eat, Drink and Remarry

She can dish it out but evidently can't take it.

Finally she decided to divorce her cold, distant, alcoholic, cheating husband. There was an interlude with PIs and cameras and Howard tracking #1 down to the house of the other woman and how said PIs were impressed with her calm behavior after they left the scene of the dirty deed.

So now you might be thinking the divorce was on, right? We-ell, it yes and no, the lawyers had hammered out all the necessary agreements for children and finances and #1 begs for another chance "for the children". Does our plucky heroine say oh hale no? Not hardly. Howard figures WTH and moves to his little large Tudor in the country for the summer, after all it wouldn't mess with the financial agreement.  Nothing changed, except her address for a few weeks, and she returned to finalize the divorce.

At last. This woman is slooooww. Oh, she gave #1's $15,000 camera to one of her elevator men because fuck you #1 and she didn't need to sell it, money was no problem.

Okay, money seems to be a big problem because she keeps telling us, one way or another, how it isn't. She has this thing about money, she can't stop talking about it. And name dropping, yeesh. I think it is fascinating that she met so many well known or important people but the way she writes it is more like "I know all these people and you don't".

Howard waxes something or other as she tries to write off her first marriage as good experience for when she became an advice columnist. Somehow I just feel we haven't come to the end of her bad decisions.

So she finally, finally is shed of #1 and is finally happy and has a "generous monthly allowance" (see what I mean about the money talk?). What's next? A wedding of someone she grew up with and a meeting with his cousin, Gene Siskel. I regret that I'm not keeping count of the names but there has been Humphrey, Kennedy, and Stevenson. Dr. Bob Stolar, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, George Smathers, Wayne Morse, bought a house from Henry Marcus, Don Budge, Jonas Salk, Tish Baldrige was a neighbor, Arnie Morton, Hank Bradford, Gene Siskel. Notice anything? Yeah, at a quick glance so far only one woman on the "drop list".

So she connects with Gene, they talk, and he introduces her to his editor and Howard starts writing pieces for the Sunday features section of the Tribune and now we are back to my opening paragraph.

Three more husbands to go.

"One thing I wasn't doing when I was young was looking for quality or character," she says. "I hope people can learn from my mistakes."- Margo Howard

Um, yeah, trouble is Howard herself seems to have learned as little as possible.

Hopefully I will be able to get back to her book on Sunday, pesky real life is in my way plus I can only tolerate so much admitted but unregretted stupidity at a time.

37 pages in and I must say it's already quite an experience. First off, Howard covers approximately 55 yrs in 208 pages so it seems that maybe there just isn't that much to tell. Howard starts out when she was 19, tossing in a couple sentences about having Ann all to herself until the age of 15 and that her parents gave her the example of a strong, loving marriage and all the advantages of a very well off lifestyle.

Chapter 1 is prefaced with a headshot of a young Margo and she is gorgeous, too bad it's only skin deep. As Howard starts her narrative she freely admits to having no ambition, no desire to do anything other than find a husband because that's what girls after college, which Howard left after her first senior term.

The tone of Howard's writing is jarring, she sounds like that 19 yr old girl. It's unsettling. On page 1 she name drops Hubert Humphrey and Dr Bob Stolar, a dermatologist of some renown. Ann Landers knew a lot of powerful and influential people.

Talking about her internship for Humphrey (new dating pool!) Howard easily admits that not only does filing bore her she couldn't be bothered to figure out how to do it correctly. Oh, well. She sounds a little testy about JFK never hitting on her. Page 6 and Howard name drops 4 names including JFK and Henry "Scoop" Jackson.

She talks about her suitors and marriage proposals, three proposals and one engagement before she settled on suitor number 4. She talks for one paragraph about the beginnings of the women's movement and how it never interested her because she liked to bat her eyelashes. So do I but then I guess even at the same age I was already more complex than Howard. She comes off as completely self absorbed and rather dim.

She talks about learning later on the difference between loving and in love and we move on to chapter 2 which starts with a picture of the bride and groom, take 1. Husband #1 is thrown under the bus- he is cold, distant, ambitious, alcoholic and married. He proposed, she accepted and then this charmer tells her he needs to divorce wife #1. This does not deter Howard and I have this feeling that the dumber the decision the harder Howard is going to cling to it. Her parents and friends beg her not to do this but being the dumbest thing to do Howard keeps going.

I wore a demure Priscilla of Boston lace gown with seed pearls. The veil was anchored by a crown. (I would love a do-over on that one.) -from Eat, Drink and Remarry. My first thought? A bigger crown?

for the first three years of her life

They honeymooned in Spain and Portugal, Howard remembers Beluga caviar and the really rich older man she met by the pool who was  a child of the shah and "endlessly fascinating".

Home again and after the thank yous are written Howard discovers she is pregnant. Easy pregnancy, hard labor, beautiful, sunny baby. Howard has a baby nurse for the first three months. As the three month period we'd engaged her for neared an end, I realized I hadn't been paying much attention to what she had done to care for Abra, and I still needed her to give me lessons in how to do this mothering thing myself. -from book

She talks of a difficult marriage, a distant husband and father and wonders if that is why she was so detached from her children when they were little and she says she regrets this and then wonders if a warmer, more loving husband would have made her a better mother. My younger two children seem to have some understanding of these early difficulties of mine and have forgiven me. The eldest, Abra, I feel has not- although it was she who had the most attention from me for the first three years of her life when she was an only child. - from book.

Am I the only one thinking somebody is angry and it's not Abra?

She had a bad marriage and a lot of money. Sounds like a description from a 40s pot boiler.They bought the townhouse of the owner of Mogen David wines and she had her "own" saleswoman at Stanley Korshak.

Howard relates a little story of being invited to dinner at the house of someone Coleman knew through business. After dinner in the parlor Howard asked who was the woman in the portrait? The wife said, "Well, that's me." Honest to God the next thing out of my mouth was,"No! Who would have a portrait of themselves with their old nose?" We were, and this is no exaggeration, shown the door three minutes later and the evening was over. (But seriously, who would not get a new portrait?) - from book.

Somewhere, back a few pages Howard mentions her mother starting the Ann Landers column and moving away from "the twin thing" and how the "twin" piggy-backed on it and became Dear Abbie. The resentment oozes.

Indeed, there seems to be a lot of resentment and pouting going on and, so far, Howard comes off as having all the depth of onionskin.

37 pages, my friends, this is going to be a looong, bumpy ride.