Our expectations of ourselves in the present is inextricably linked to the experiences which shaped us in the past. Curtis Sittenfeld illustrates that particular kind of American machismo - silent, direct, self-assured and arrogant - via the newlywed husband, and the wife's feminine desire to be all things to all people while making her characters bloody as opposed to straw men. The simultaneous boosting and smothering effect of ego is at the heart of the conflict between the newlyweds. ( )