Among Friends: Who We Like, Why We Like Them, and What We Do With Them - Hardcover

Pogrebin's work will help readers appreciate themselves as complex social beings as they learn to analyze the contradictions, crises and rewards of their own friendships. A chapter on ending friendships ("A mature person manages to grow both roots and wings") is particularly illuminating. Not surprisingly, Pogrebin, one of the founding editors of Ms. magazine, and the author of Growing up Free, a blueprint for nonsexist childrearing, "welcomes any sign of a breakdown between categories, be they racial or gender categories or the rigid dividing lines between the personal and professional aspects of our lives." She devotes the bulk of her book to exploring and encouraging alliances that bridge these gaps, as well as the boundaries of age, sexual preference, socio-economic levels and disability. She comes down hard on male friendship for a lack of intimacy but cautions that women sometimes become "relationship-junkies." Throughout, the provocative thesis is enlivened with anecdotes, perceptively reasoned and well-documented, although some of the research is overwhelming. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Pogrebin analyzes friendship and friendship patterns in the United States. Relying on published research, interviews, and personal anecdotes, she distinguishes seven basic relationships, including friendship. She then discusses interferences to friendship, among them love, dependency, and competitiveness; how friendships end; where and how people make friends; friendships in various ethnic groups; differences between men's and women's friendships; etc. After acknowledging the need for cross-sexual friendships, Pogrebin concludes that women contribute more to such relationships by enhancing men's self-esteem and fulfilling their intimacy needs. Interesting and informative, though overlong and undistinguished in style. Bonnie Hoffman, A.C.S.W., North Fork Counseling Service, Mattituck, N.Y.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.