The heart of a memoir is not usually an idea, but a story. She asks, “What did I believe? That I could be gay and straight? That I could be married and unhindered? A wanderer and a mother?” In her introduction to “The Best American Essays 2015,” Levy writes, “An essay must have an idea as its beating heart.” The question driving “The Rules Do Not Apply” is if the author has expected too much out of life, was too entitled and therefore brought down the slings and arrows of fortune upon her own head. Add in Levy’s increasingly undeniable desire for a child, and a storm begins to brew. Levy says, “I had managed to solve the Jane Austen problems that women have been confronting for centuries - securing a provider for your children, finding a mate to pass the time with, and creating a convivial home - in an entirely unconventional way.” But infidelity, insecurities and addiction slip into Lucy and Ariel’s home on Shelter Island. Her romantic impetuousness is rewarded, too, and the woman she loves, Lucy, leaves her partner and her West Coast home to marry Levy. About a third of the way into her memoir, Levy is living her own version of “having it all.” Her talent, impatience and ambition are rewarded, and she becomes a staff writer at the New Yorker.
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