Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions and Cash Author: By Liz Perle Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. ASIN: 080507712X

About This Book

Long ago, and not entirely consciously, Liz Perle says she made a quiet contract with cash: she would do what it took to get it - work hard, marry right - but she didn't want to have to think about it too much. The subject of money had, since childhood, been quietly sidestepped, a shadowy factor whose private influence it was impolite to discuss. This deliberate denial eventually exacted its price, however, when a sudden divorce left Perle with no home, no job, a four-year-old, and a box of toys. She realized she could no longer afford to leave her murky and fraught relationship with money unexamined.

Perle discovered as she reassembled her life that almost every woman she knew also subscribed to this strange and emotional code of discretion about money - even though it affected their relationships with their parents, partners, children, friends, coworkers and communities. Women were all-too-willing to tell each other about their deepest secrets or sex lives, but were silent when it came to their financial assets.

in Money, A Memoir, Perle breaks the silence by adding her own story to the anecdotes and insights of psychologists, researchers and more than 200 "ordinary" women. It turned out that when money was the topic, most women needed permission to talk. When she confessed her fears and idiosyncrasies to other women, Perle found that others opened up to help her present an insightful, unflinching look at the at once subtle and commanding influence of money.

From The Seattle Times review by Maisy Fernandez:

When a woman buys a $300 pair of shoes, it's not often about the heels. How women spend is directly affected by their emotions. 'We continue to consume because we have come to believe that a life of love, comfort and safety for ourselves and for our children can be obtained item by item,' Perle writes.

Weaving her own 'average woman' tales throughout the book, Perle also includes interviews with 200 other women, psychologists and researchers to offer an enlightening glimpse into women's relationships with money and what they can do to improve it.

The tales are spun with good humor, but the book's staggering statistics (the number of women filing for bankruptcy since 1981 has increased 662 percent; women compose 87 percent of the impoverished elderly) will make you think twice before you charge those wedge-heel boots you're coveting.