Meredith Maran was expelled from the elite Bronx High School of Science in 1968 for anti-war organizing. Now, over forty, with an ex-husband, a lover, two teenage sons and a mortgage on her dream house at the edge of the Oakland ghetto, she still speaks for an entire generation that never stopped asking questions. How to you feel about your decision to stay in the inner city when your kid wants to carry a knife to junior high? How do you build a happy family when nothing in your childhood taught you how--and when your partner is a woman? How do you keep your heart open when breast cancer and AIDS are attacking your closest friends? How can you be nutritionally correct when you make a great chocolate cake? Reading What It's Like To Live Now is like dinner with your funniest, most unshockable woman friend. You won't want it to end. "I love this book...Through warmly candid self-exploration--and a keen eye on the telling minutiae of daily life--Meredith Maran captures all the heartbreak and glory of coping in difficult times." -- Armistead Maupin
"Meredith Maran captures all the heartbreak and glory of coping in difficult times."--Armistead Maupin
"A delight ... a West Coast, distaff Woody Allen, with a good dollop more compassion."--Los Angeles Times
"A strong new voice. Meredith Maran is charming and confrontational ... politically engaged ... shockingly honest."--Jeffrey Klein, Editor in Chief, Mother Jones