A View of Relationships Across Time: The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together. By Daphne de Marneffe. New York:  Scribner, 2018,  xvi + 353 pp., $26.99 hardcover. The Peacock Feast. By Lisa Gornick. New York:  Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019,  viii + 296 pp., $26.00 hardcover. Nearing Ninety and Other Comedies of Late Life. By Judith Viorst. New York:  Simon & Schuster, 2019,  xiv + 82 pp., $17.00 hardcover.

I chose to review these three books together, as all explore relationships over time. All are informed by psychoanalytic ideas, yet are written for a general audience. My perspective is that of a psychoanalyst who treats children, adolescents, adults, and couples, but also that of a general reader who consumes novels, poetry, biographies, art history, self-help books, blogs, memes, and maps.

I'll first discuss The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together, by Daphne de Marneffe. The Rough Patch is meant for those in unhappy marriages, but it will also be helpful to clinicians. De Marneffe is a gifted psychologist and couples therapist whose work is steeped in psychoanalytic thought. She has been especially influenced by the literature on attachment and mentalization. In 2019 she published the second edition of Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life (2004), in which she explores controversies in the psychology of motherhood.

In her wide-ranging thoughts about marital relationships, de Marneffe integrates psychoanalytic theory, developmental research, clinical experience,