The End of Men

by Karen Rinaldi

  That shouldn’t have come as a surprise: What affair isn’t messy and emotionally wrought? But it shattered my sense of certitude about what I wanted. I had finally shaken the binds of convention that I had been raised to accept. Now this.

  My father interjected this time and asked, “Why do you make your life so complicated?”

  I objected only to the word “make.” I wasn’t trying to complicate things; I was trying to simplify them by figuring out something essential that eluded me. What did I need a man for?

  Clearly I kept coming back around to that strong pull, one I couldn’t reason away. Was it an atavistic urge? An evolutionary imperative? I didn’t buy that.

  Still, my attraction to men and my desire for a deeper connection with a partner was as unavoidable as my need to breathe. I loved living life by following my own compass, and yet somehow this had entangled me in a monogamous relationship again, one with major consequences.

  I still had doubts that women and men could live together in anything approaching harmony. We had a long way to go to become equals, both in the world and in the home.

  And the historical and political implications were personal for me. I was certain of three things: I didn’t want a husband, I did want a child, and I wasn’t sure how it all stacked up.

  Twenty years and two children later, I am still with that same man. I don’t need him, but I want him in my life. He doesn’t protect me from others, only from my worst instincts. And as far as procreating, well, we did it the old-fashioned way and that will never get old. When I made him promise never to propose marriage, he said, “Okay . . .”

  Ironically, six or seven years into our relationship, our accountant persuaded us to head to city hall. Marrying allowed us to capture the tax benefits that marriage confers.

  My husband and I still don’t know the year and date of our civil ceremony without consulting our marriage certificate—wherever that is. We have shared the joys of raising our two sons and his two daughters with balance and grace—except, of course, when we have failed to find either balance or grace. But we have muddled through.

  I go to work every day and he stays home to write. He does laundry and cooks during the week. I do the same on the weekends. He takes care of our home. I pay the bills.

  He is comfortable in his masculinity and doesn’t need to remind me of who is boss, because in our relationship there isn’t one. Our lives are shared at every level, and I realize now what a man is for.

  He is a true partner. He is a lover and a friend. He is the father of my children and the only one in the world who cares about the minutiae of their lives like I do.

  What could be better than that?

  Karen Rinaldi is the publisher of Harper Wave, an imprint she founded in 2012, and a senior vice president at HarperCollins Publishers. While she has worked in the publishing industry for more than two decades as a publisher, editor, and content creator, this is her first time in the role of novelist. The End of Men inspired the 2016 film Maggie's Plan. Karen's non-fiction work has appeared on Oprah.com, in the New York Times, and Prevention magazine, among others. She and her family split their time between New York, New Jersey, and (whenever possible) Costa Rica.

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  About the Book

  The Story Behind The End of Men

  The seeds of this novel were sown fifteen years ago on the infertile grounds of the New Jersey Transit bus system. On the two-and-a-half-hour commute to a job I loved as an editor, my mind would often wander to consider the life I had designed for myself: fulfilled professional, mother of two young sons, partnered with a man I loved. The End of Men came from the stories I wrote on that commute as a way of honoring my many friends who were living similar, hectic lives. We were pushing at the boundaries of accomplishment— breadwinners and mothers, living life according to our own rules—with all of the conflict that portends. Yet I didn’t see any of our stories represented in the media.

  Isabel, Anna, Beth, and Maggie became composites of all of the remarkable and complex women I knew and loved. Their stories became a draft of a novel, and then . . . I put the manuscript in the drawer. But my characters continued to live fully in my mind. I would often take the novel out and tinker with it—to spend time on the page with these women—but the demands of my life pushed writing to the backseat of more immediate demands.

  More than a decade later, my friend, director Rebecca Miller and I were watching our sons at fencing lessons. Rebecca was looking for material for a new film. I told her the story of a woman named Maggie, who decides to give her husband back to his first wife—a plotline from The End of Men. “What is that?” Rebecca asked. “I love it! I want it to be my next movie.”

  More than four years later, in May 2016, Rebecca’s wonderful film Maggie’s Plan released into theaters, and my novel was pulled out of the drawer. Now, after nearly thirty years of being a publisher and an editor, I find myself on the other side of the desk, humbled and schooled by the very profession on which I have built my career. And I am thoroughly enjoying the process!

  A decade and a half ago, I was trying to get to something essential about being a woman in today’s world. And while the ground keeps shifting—for the better, I think (and thank goodness!)—I hope to add a voice to the sometimes insane, often wonderful, and equally challenging lives of the women, both real and fictional, I hold so dearly.

  Read On

  The Day I Was Stronger Than I Ever Thought Possible

  Excerpt courtesy of Oprah.com. Used with permission.

  My best wave ever wasn’t particularly elegant. It wasn’t the biggest I’d ever made, and it certainly wasn’t the fastest. It was a soft little peeler I surfed alongside my fifteen-year-old son, Rocco, one blessed July morning. It had been five months since I’d been in the water.

  At the start of that same year, I had been diagnosed with cancer. My doctors had found an aggressive, invasive tumor in my left breast. Three lumpectomies over the course of the next two months resulted in questionable margins. We decided to treat the cancer systemically with chemotherapy before dealing with the localized DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) cells stubbornly residing in my breast.

  When I was about to enter my sixth and final round of chemo, we found a second tumor. Between the double threats of the residual DCIS and the appearance of the new tumor, my doctors and I decided to do a mastectomy right away. We will never know if the second tumor was missed in the original diagnosis or if it broke through the chemo—though I prefer to believe the former, as the latter does not bode well for my future.

  In either case, the treatment I’d endured was determined ineffectual, so I would have to undergo another protocol of chemo—different drugs, more aggressive—once I recovered from the mastectomy. I had a two-week respite between the end of the first failed protocol and the mastectomy plus subsequent chemo—enough time to get in at least one surf session before being land-bound for another four or five months.

  Not much had gone right all year, but on that beautiful New Jersey July day with perfect, light offshore winds grooming small swell lines of thigh-high wave faces, the universe would conspire to make everything right again, if only momentarily. Rocco and I paddled out through the green Atlantic water together. He stroked easily through gutless white water and was sitting on his board in the lineup (just beyond where the waves break) a minute or two later. I struggled: arms powerless, heart pounding, lungs heavy. My goodness, I thought, this year has kicked my ass. I couldn’t do it. Choking back a sob, I turned my sleek white nine-foot-three Jim Phillips single-fin board around to head back to shore. My inner voice nagged, There is no way you can do this. As I reached shallow water near the shoreline, I suddenly saw myself as my son might have seen me from the lineup. I looked defeated.

  Instead of hiking my board out of the water, I swung it back around to face the small crashing waves. I put my head down (which you never do in the ocean, but even holding m
y head up took energy I didn’t have) and paddled with every bit of juice left in my body. I pushed through past the break. When I paddled up to Rocco, heaving from the effort, he just smiled at me and said, “You made it,” before deftly turning and paddling into a wave.

  I have to admit: I am blessed with an incredibly generous teenager who doesn’t mind surfing with his middle-aged mother. We started when Rocco was four and I was forty. In the beginning, we both stayed on the inside, where we would get pushed by the white water to shore. I would position and push him into waves until he was strong enough to propel himself. When I began to paddle out to catch a few open faces, I would keep watch over him in the white water from beyond the break. When he was very young, he would cry out in fear for my safety if I stayed out too long, or if the current pulled me too far north or south beyond his sight line.

  Then one day, when he was thirteen, I was taken completely by surprise to find Rocco in the lineup. He’d never been past the break before, and it terrified me that he’d gotten there without my knowledge of his effort. I’d thought he’d gone back to shore already. “How the hell did you get out here?” I asked when he paddled up beside me. “I thought you went in!”

  “It took me half an hour, but I made it.” He was very proud, and so was I. From that day forward, we paddled out together.

  This summer, the tide has now turned. I watch him duck-dive and paddle through enormous breaking waves, and drop into bombs I do everything to avoid. When the waves get too heavy for me, I will surf on the inside, while he heads for the horizon in hopes of catching a big one. It still takes every ounce of faith to not panic when he disappears into the swell, or with the pull of the drifting current.

  On the day that I caught the best wave of my life, Rocco’s smile as I approached the lineup gave me more confidence than he can possibly understand.

  One wave was all I needed.

  After bobbing in the surf with my boy for a half hour, a sweet little swell line came my way. I swung my board around to face shore, and saw Rocco to my left. It was his wave; he was closer to the peak. Surfing etiquette dictates that you cede to the person in best position. If it had been anyone else, I would have given the surfer the right of way, but I put etiquette aside in favor of sharing a wave with my son, hoping I wouldn’t kook out and blow it for him. I paddled harder than seemed necessary to catch the waist-high bump and caught the energy of the wave, which lifted and pushed me forward as I popped up, turned, and glided along in perfect trim. The wave was slow and forgiving, the ocean uncharacteristically merciful. Rocco slid just twenty feet ahead of me. The two of us rode along until the wave unfolded onto the shore. He kicked out the back of the wave while I tumbled off the board into the white water.

  Breathless from the beauty of that moment—and from the physical effort—I wept as I headed back out to the lineup. I didn’t catch another wave during that session, and it was more than four months before I ventured back into the ocean.

  In my treatment, the worst was yet to come. While recovering from the mastectomy that would compromise the entire left side of my torso, I endured another two months of brutal chemotherapy—a protocol unaffectionately known as the “red devil.” When I was too sick to work, or too tired to move, I would close my eyes and ride that one wave with Rocco over and over again. I ride it still, each time I visit the doctor or paddle out, trying to find peace in the mystery of where the next wave will take me.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful to so many who helped to bring The End of Men into the world. My thanks to . . .

  Kim Witherspoon and Alexis Hurley at Inkwell, whose never-say-die attitude is a lesson for us all.

  Rebecca Miller, whose wonderful film, Maggie’s Plan, breathed new life into this novel.

  Erin Wicks, who kicked my ass in the best of ways. I wrote this book for women like her, and I am honored to say that her influence is all over it.

  Amy Baker, publisher of Perennial and her killer team, Mary Sasso and Paul Florez.

  Leslie Cohen and SallyAnne McCartin, publicists extraordinaires.

  Dori Carlson, Suzette Lam, and Leydiana Rodriguez for tending to the necessary details that turn a manuscript into a book; and to Adalis Martinez for the inspired cover.

  Michael Morrison and Jonathan Burnham, awesome boss-men of Harper, who welcomed this novel into our publishing home.

  Mike Magers, for the gift of his photography and friendship.

  Bob Levine and Kim Schefler, for reliable counsel on all things big and small.

  Kassie Evashevski, who helps me every day in every way. Her spirit and friendship imbue this book from start to finish.

  Colin Dickerman, for encouraging me to not burn these pages and more.

  Kristina Rinaldi, Chris Padgett, Allison Warren, Victoria Comella, Ann Patty, Joe Dolce, Roger Trilling, early readers and la famiglia, all.

  Joel Rose, whose love, encouragement, and long-suffering patience give me faith in myself when I lose sight of it.

  Celine and Chloe, who humble me with their grace and love.

  Rocco and Gio, who grant me the courage to try to live and write as honestly as I am able (and who insisted I keep the original title). They teach me more than they can know.

  PRAISE FOR THE END OF MEN

  “In 1995, I wrote a short story, Baster, inspired by some goings-on in my friend Karen Rinaldi’s life. In 2003, that story, significantly altered, became the Jennifer Aniston movie The Switch. In 2016, another film, Maggie’s Plan directed by Rebecca Miller, appeared, this time based partly on Rinaldi’s unfinished novel about said events. And now, Rinaldi has finished that novel, creating yet another version, her own version. I knew it was a good idea the first time I heard it, but I had no inkling it would prove quite so fruitful. Given the subject matter, however, how could it be otherwise? Certainly, this is a story that keeps on giving.”

  —Jeffrey Eugenides

  “With humor, bravery, and panache, Karen Rinaldi puts her finger straight on the tender conundrum of the female experience, where work, love, and motherhood intersect.”

  —Rebecca Miller, director of Maggie’s Plan

  “Karen Rinaldi’s The End of Men is in every way marvelous. A sharply drawn story—or more accurately, stories—that gets everything right. Warmhearted but painfully close to the bone.”

  —Anthony Bourdain

  “Cool and hot, sweet and sharp, The End of Men is a beguiling modern tale of four self-made women who are doing it their way, and the men who’re along for the ride. I read it in one sitting, without checking my phone. A novel can’t possibly come more highly recommended than that.”

  —Karen Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel

  “I love all of the women in Rinaldi’s novel—Isabel, Anna, Beth, Maggie. Having grown up in a world of women—women who compete with each other, love each other, mother together, navigate life together—I found it thrilling to read a book that is unapologetically about women and our intertwined lives and essential friendships.”

  —Elizabeth Lesser, bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow

  “In Karen Rinaldi’s coy and sprawling novel, men still matter. Only we see them through the eyes of four brilliant and fierce women for whom having it all is very much a work in progress. Anna, Beth, Isabel, and Maggie collectively are like the phases of the moon: hormonally, emotionally, and romantically attuned. Expertly woven together, their voices become a New York City tableau of marriage, children, life, death, careers, pregnancy tests, love, and, um, men.”

  —Betsy Lerner, author of The Bridge Ladies

  COPYRIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE END OF MEN
. Copyright © 2017 by Karen Rinaldi. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION

  Cover design by Adalis Martinez

  Cover images: © CSA-Printstock / Getty images (shoes); © KeithBishop / Getty Images (wrenches)

  EPub Edition June 2017 ISBN 9780062569011

  ISBN 978-0-06-256899-1 (pbk.)

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