Until the Real Thing Comes Along: - Hardcover

The answer: she persuades Ethan to impregnate her, and they agree to a marriage of true minds (if not bodies.) They won't, of course, actually marry, or even live together. But Patty signs on for a lifetime of child rearing with her sexually indifferent soul mate--and finds herself wading into a wealth of emotional complications. Will Ethan ever make love to her again? Will her parents accept her (essentially) single-mommy status? Berg manages to cast these thorny issues in a comedic light, without ever consigning Patty and her wisecracking cohorts to a complete farce. And there is that payoff at the end, when Ethan hands her the love child in the delivery room:

With a tenderness I would not have thought possible in earth-bound humans, he gives her to me. Her wet head is cupped; her quivering chest is calmed. What have my hands been doing all my life before this? I see now that they too have just been born. I unwrap the blanket, stop breathing.

Praise for Durable Goods

"        A little gem of a book."

--Richard Bausch

Praise for Talk Before Sleep

"        Elizabeth Berg is one of those rare souls who can play with truths as if swinging across the void from one trapeze to another."

--Joan Gould

Praise for Range of Motion

"        Berg's brilliant insights about the human condition, plus her capacity for turning the ordinary into richly detailed prose, make this book the love story of the year."
--Detroit Free Press

Praise for The Pull of the Moon

"        It is wise and witty, thoughtful and exhilarating. It leaves the reader observing life with great hope and satisfaction."

--Jill McCorkle

Praise for What We Keep

"        Berg knows the hearts of her characters intimately, showing them with compassion, humor and an illuminating generosity."

--The Seattle Times