Mating Ritual of the North American WASP

Content Type: Book Reviews, Feminist Review Subject Matter: contemporary, feminism, romantic relationships Published: Feminist Review

Reviewed for The Feminist Review

By Lauren Lipton
5 Spot

**spoiler alert** At its core, Mating Rituals of the North American WASP is wholly typical. Girl goes to Vegas. Girl gets drunk. Girl wakes up to find she married some stranger. Girl flees back to New York. Boy calls her up to tell her that, yes, they’re legally married. In time, Boy and Girl fall in love and decide to stay married. Mix in a secondary cliché plot: if they stay married, they get money.

Peggy is a New Yorker who runs a shop with her best friend. They’ve been successful for ten years, but their rent is about to be hiked up (that much is realistic). Luke Sedgwick is the last surviving member of the venerable Sedgwick clan, a family that has not left Connecticut since its founder built a big house which is now falling apart. Luke would love to sell the house and leave his oppressive birthright behind him, but his great-aunt Abigail is in her eighties and she refuses to leave. Her health is deteriorating at the same pace as the house, and Luke is badly in need of a way to pay for both.

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