Praise for Seeing as Your Shoes are Soon to be on Fire :
Monroy (The Marriage Act) chronicles her efforts to find lasting love with the (often unsolicited) advice of her opinionated mother, a retired U.S. visa screener referred to as “The Profiler"... [she] provides insight into managing expectations and the layers of experience, how we can construct a vivid romantic narrative around someone when we are merely a “bit player” in their own story... it is interesting to watch Monroy learn her lessons, to stop romanticizing her partners or assigning them to neat boxes, to assert boundaries and rules, even if they get broken. When she finally gets her happy ending, it feels earned. — Publishers Weekly
“Thrilling, enigmatic, wow! and beautifully observed—these are just a few of the things I’ve written in the margins of these essays. Liza Monroy’s writing is as fun as it is profound, as lively as it is moving—this is a book you’ll want to tell people about.” —Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Portable Veblen
“Unlike some of the skinflint, unreliable, or downright psychotic male suitors who appear in her outstanding memoir, Liza Monroy is a great date – a masterful storyteller, witty, urbane, tender, and hilarious. This is a fast-paced, deftly written, unsparing, and hilarious journey through the landscape of bad love. Monroy’s imperious, charming, boyfriend-deporting Mom, AKA The Profiler, is a memoir character for the ages; she seems to have emerged, fully formed, from the pages of a Philip Roth novel.” —Dan White, author of Under the Stars and The Cactus Eaters
Praise for The Marriage Act :
“Despite its breezy style, Monroy’s provocative memoir offers more emotional food for thought than can possibly be digested in one sitting. After only reading the introduction, one might wish to remain quiet for a few minutes and ponder her use of the phrase gender-neutral marriage…As such, this phraseology perfectly embodies Monroy’s intentional marriage to a gay man. Though fraught with one psychological or legal time bomb after another, the marriage worked, despite the unimaginable odds. The book is bright. It’s chatty. But Monroy manages to deliver a hefty emotional wallop.” — Booklist, Starred Review
“Through an absurdly beautiful act of devotion, which forced her to become an outlaw, in a time (now) and a country (ours) where the laws are cruel and outdated, Liza Monroy emerges as both an artist and a hero.” —Nick Flynn
"This book is a blast — it's a political act, a buddy story, a love story, and a family saga gone beautifully and tenderly wrong. Read it." —Anthony Swofford, New York Times bestselling author of Jarhead
“An irresistible blend of candor, humor, insight, lively prose, and plain old humanity, this roller coaster of a memoir about relationships, place, and displacement is so much fun to read!” —Phillip Lopate
" The Marriage Act is a gripping, cinematic page-turner that, as the best memoirs do, opens avenues to larger, zeitgeisty conversations. Here, immigration, civil rights, gender issues, and same-sex marriage are high-stakes backdrops of a deeply personal, affecting tale of love, friendship, and family." —Julia Scheeres, bestselling author of Jesus Land and A Thousand Lives
"The best part about the gay marriage debate (and its reality) is the opportunity for each of us to think about what marriage means to us—to name and practice the values it represents. For Liza Monroy, marriage is a path to justice, a commitment to a friend, and, above all, marriage is love." —Jennifer Baumgardner, author of We Do! American Leaders Who Believe in Marriage Equality
“Monroy questions the meanings of friendship, love, discrimination, and breaking boundaries. But her wicked sense of humor makes The Marriage Act a brisk, entertaining read. You’ll never think of ‘love and marriage’ the same way again.” —Leora Tanenbaum, author of Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation
"Love is not a limited commodity. Sexuality enjoys limits far beyond heterosexual monogamy. And marriage is a promise limited only by those who make it. The Marriage Act doesn't just change the game when it comes to how we think about love and sex and marriage. It creates an entirely new one that we're all about to play." —Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage
“With The Marriage Act, Liza Monroy portrays a critical moment in our nation's troubled history of attempting to legislate love while also opening a space for future iterations of the institution that go beyond arguments of gender and into notions of friendship, passion, and dedication. A remarkable and generous book.” —Cris Beam, author of To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care
“…she writes and lives courageously. Monroy’s timely memoir rises beyond sex and politics, ultimately revealing that only two partners themselves can determine what makes their love and union authentic.” — Publishers Weekly
“Written with wit and wisdom, Monroy captures the mysterious essence of what tugs at our hearts, what makes certain human relationships love affairs, friendships, partnerships. The lines that divide us, the rings that bring us together, and how to find hope when it all falls apart.” — Interview Magazine
Praise for Mexican High :
"Liza Monroy, wise beyond her years, brilliantly portrays the highs and lows and loves of school life, the episodes we’ve all experienced and never forget. Spirited, harrowing, and utterly compelling, Monroy’s captivating voice will be with you long after you’ve finished reading.” —Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
“Liza Monroy’s coming of age story set in Mexico manages to be hot, hilarious, and heartbreaking—all at the same time. A stunning debut.” —Susan Shapiro, author of Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart
“Liza Monroy has a magical voice, the kind that makes you want to read the next sentence and then the one after that to see what turn her writing will take next. She is observant, funny, and curiously wise about the culture we live and flounder in.” —Daphne Merkin, author of Dreaming of Hitler and Enchantment
2016-08-24
A mother’s monitoring becomes helpful but overwhelming as the author travels a rockier road than most toward domestic bliss.Though labeled a collection of essays, this book reads more like a memoir and covers some of the same ground as Monroy’s previous memoir, The Marriage Act (2014). The author proceeds chronologically and follows the narrative thread of romantic and marital misadventure, but the focus remains mostly on the relationship between Monroy and her mother. The latter, referred to throughout as the “Profiler,” has distinguished herself with the State Department for her sharp instincts in dealing with visa applications, and she uses that same intuition in judging—and almost invariably rejecting—her daughter’s suitors. “At fourteen, I felt smothered by the intensity of our single mother/only daughter relationship,” writes the author, and readers can easily understand, particularly after a teenage boyfriend with whom the daughter has shared drugs runs afoul of authorities because of “a personal mission to get rid of the bad boy who captured her daughter’s affections.” But as the daughter matures into a writer in her 20s and 30s and the mother continues to overstep, the attempts to cast this as sitcom cuteness begin to seem a little unnerving, particularly as Monroy invites her mother to contribute interludes on what was wrong with her daughter’s choices in men and why. The author does seem a little deluded in her choices—e.g., she fell deeply for a vagabond who said things like, “the real art is my life,” and “I’m a professional appreciator of moments.” This followed her marriages to a gay man, to whom she gave the gift of citizenship, and a second who turned overly controlling, followed by a cohabitant poet who was both a perpetual liar and psychopathically vindictive (inspiring the book’s title). Eventually Monroy looked for direction from a reader of tarot cards, making her mother more resentful, before finding belated stability in marriage and motherhood. An uneven collection in which the author shows that it’s time to move on from mom.
