Jenny Block

Open is a book about marriage--at once the story of Jenny Block's own open marriage and an exploration of our culture's assumptions about what makes a good marriage generally. Not by nature a woman bent on making unconventional choices, Block nonetheless never felt that conventional monogamous marriage ... (more)was right for her. In sharing the story of her choice within the context of suburban marriage and motherhood, Block casts a fresh look upon open marriage as an option for loving couples.

Jenny Block is your average girl next door, a suburban wife and mother for whom married life never felt quite right. She operates from the assumption that most couples who are curious about or engaged in open marriages are in fact more like her—normal people who question whether monogamy is right for ... (more)them; good people who love their spouses but want variation; capable parents who are not deviant just because they choose to be honest about their desires and sexuality.

In Open, Block paints a down to earth picture of how an open marriage can work, and specifically why it works for her and her husband. In dissecting other people’s strong reactions to her choice, she explores the question of why cheating is more socially acceptable than open marriage.

Open challenges our notions of what traditional marriage looks like, and presents one woman’s journey down an uncertain path that ultimately proves that open marriage is a viable option, and one that’s in fact better for some couples than conventional marriage.

Jenny Block writes for Women’s Health, The Dallas Morning News, American Way, www.ellegirl.com, BeE, bRILLIANT, People Newspapers, Stone, Where, and D. She lives in Dallas, Tx.

Finally, a book about open marriage that
grapples with the problems surrounding monogamy and fidelity in an
honest, heartfelt, and non-fringe manner. In Open, Block paints a
down-to-earth picture of how an open marriage can work, and
specifically why it works for her and her husband. In dissecting ... (more)other
people's strong reactions to her choice, she explores the question of
why cheating is more socially acceptable than open marriage. In part,
she concludes, the lack of models for successful functional open
marriages is such that the general public is not yet equipped to
handle treating it as anything other than abnormal. Open challenges
our notions of what traditional marriage looks like, and presents one
woman's journey down an uncertain path that ultimately proves that
open marriage is a viable option, and one that's in fact better for
some couples than conventional marriage.

Jenny Block writes for a variety of regional and national
publications, as well as for the website Huffington Post where she
blogs weekly. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and is
slated to appear in Rebcca Walker's upcoming anthology "Walk This Way:
Introducing the New American Family." The inspiration for Open stems
from her piece, "Portrait of an Open Marriage" which ran in Tango, and
was reprinted by Cosmopolitan Germany and The Huffington Post.