Don’t you always wonder what REALLY goes in another marriage.  Sometimes, I look at a couple, usually a celebrity couple, and think, “how on earth do they stay together?”

If you feel the same way, be sure to pick up Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles, 1910-1939. Don’t let the long title scare you off.  This is biographical writing at its best.  Katie Roiphe, who writes on women’s issues for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate, has thoroughly researched the lives of seven famous couples.  She’s then taken all that research and turned it into insightful, interesting reading.  In fact, I devoured much of the book in one setting Sunday afternoon.

For each couple, Roiphe opens with a moment of crisis in their relationship.  She begins with H.G. Wells, author of War of the Worlds, and his wife, Jane Wells.  The moment is the birth of his illegitimate child, whose mother is the prominent, young feminist, Rebecca West.  Much of the chapter is told from the point of view of Wells and West, whose affair was known by all involved.  However, during the final pages Roiphe turns her attention to Jane.  Roiphe examines her writing and uncovers a much more nuanced reading of how Jane must have felt in the situation.

My favorite chapter is on Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf’s sister.  An artist, and the center of the famed  “Bloomsbury” group, Vanessa managed to carry on multiple affairs, yet still remain friends with all involved.  Roiphe begins Vanessa’s chapter with a dinner where three men, including her husband, all sit at her table.  Roiphe explores how Vanessa was able to maintain the delicate balance between all these relationships.  However, just as one comes to admire Vanessa and her tribe for their honesty, Roiphe turns the tables by investigating how Vanessa’s children reacted to their upbringing.  While the adults all felt that they were forging new kinds of relationships, their children were reared in an oddly Victorian atmosphere where none of them knew what was happening between their parents.

Roiphe sifts through mountains of material to create vivid depictions of each marriage from multiple perspectives.  While it’s true that no one will ever really know what happens behind closed doors, Roiphe is able to take the volumes of letters, diaries, and essays written by these people to craft tantalizing glimpses of what it must have been like to feel that the world was new and the rules waited to be written.