I'VE TRIED BEING NICE

The debut essay collection from the veteran novelist.

Leary, the author of The Foundling and Outtakes From a Marriage, begins with a relatable anecdote about her experience with a neighbor who would let her dog roam on the author’s property. The neighbor ignored Leary’s concerns regarding her volatile dog, until she had enough and stopped being nice: “At that moment I was Walter White from Breaking Bad; I was Sir from To Sir, with Love; I was young Jane Eyre. Why do we love those characters so much? Because they tried being nice. Then they stopped.” The author’s candid essays invite readers to laugh and cry along with her as she attempts to relieve herself of her people-pleasing duties. She fluidly guides us through her thought processes, while finding humor and displaying a refreshing vulnerability. She is unafraid to relate hard lessons she has learned over the years. There were times when she battled intrusive thoughts and times when she was overwhelmed by the fame of her actor husband, Denis. “My desperation to please others became even more of an issue when my husband Denis became famous,” she writes. Each chapter offers a little peek into her world: hilarious red carpet moments, struggles with alcohol, sweet cuddles with her dogs. “I’d still like to think of myself as somebody who is essentially kind,” she writes. “Or at least tries to be kind. Kindness is selfless, it doesn’t come from a fear of rejection or a desire to be admired, it comes, in its purest form, from wanting, simply, to be good to others.” Leary conveys that although pleasing people is a constant battle, the need for her to be kind and compassionate is always at the forefront of her mind.

A humorous and honest tale of a woman and her struggle as a people-pleaser.