Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us.

The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). Much of the writing is memorable, however, as when she describes one lover, a married man and recovering alcoholic, as “a category-six hurricane about to make landfall.” Many readers will sympathize with Tate, especially in passages where she thinks she’s finally found the right man only to have her heart broken yet again.Ī moving account of one woman’s attempts to find love and stability.

Consequently, it often reads like a romance novel, with lines like, “When he pressed his perfect lips against mine, I swallowed starlight.” Tate’s sarcastic style can be entertaining-when Rosen told her not to use any three-syllable words to describe her feelings, she thought, “My top choice: adios”-but the narrative would have been stronger if the author more deeply explored the complexities of group therapy, body shame, loneliness, and more. Tate documents her alternately loving and confrontational encounters with fellow group members, but most of the book focuses on her many attempts to find the perfect man. This chatty memoir, punctuated with beautifully rendered sections, chronicles the years she spent in Chicago in Rosen’s groups. Rosen, a middle-aged man “slightly reminiscent of Einstein,” who encouraged her to be open about every aspect of her life. At the suggestion of a friend, Tate signed up for group therapy with Dr.

Her long struggle with bulimia-by fourth grade she had “been marinating in body hatred for a few years”-and the trauma from seeing a childhood friend’s father drown during a holiday in Hawaii had sapped her confidence. Yet she never fit in as an “oddball” who “voted Democratic, liked poetry, and settled north of the Mason-Dixon line” for a law career in Chicago. People who knew Tate probably didn’t see her as the sort who hoped that “someone would shoot me in the head.” Growing up in Texas, she excelled in school at 26, she was first in her law school class.

A young lawyer who wants to die enters group therapy to save her life.

Christie tate group dr rosen