I'm No Saint: Memoir of a Wayward Wife | 
 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth Hayt
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
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Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 945867
Media: Paperback
Edition: Advance Reading Copy Edition
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 0446694614
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.810973
EAN: 9780446694612
ASIN: 0446694614
Publication Date: October 26, 2006
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new.Not a remainder.Gift quality.In stock and ready to ship now.
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Product Description
Elizabeth Hayt embarked upon holy matrimony with reservations. Once there, she found herself drowning in an ocean of wifely and motherly duties, and at 35, felt there had to be more to life. But she was terrified when her husband called it quits. She responded by ricocheting from one high-powered man to another in a post-marital celebration of dating that rivals anything Samantha Jones had to offer. From stripteases before media moguls to attempts at reaching the emotional cores of Manhattan's most lusted-after bachelors, Elizabeth rebels against her Great Neck roots, Ivy league education, and Upper East Side trappings as she delights in revealing the sex lives of true players and sexual politics of New York. In the end, she finds a way to reconcile her bad-girl desires with her good- girl upbringing and defy the predictable expectations of wife- and motherhood.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 42 more reviews...
 Thank you Elizabeth September 1, 2008
S. Vega (Astoria NY USA)
After reading the catty negative reviews here I felt the need to write my own. Hows this for a review?? I couldn't put the book down. From the very first page until the very last page I was stealing paragraphs while working, while vacationing and while doing laundry. This book was one of the true honest portrayals of a "Upper East Side" Desperate Housewife. I picked up the book not expecting to be glued from the getgo. I appreciate the author's recollections and clear memories dating back to her childhood. She admits what too many of us don't and its terribly bookworthy. Her sex scenes were graphic, but if they weren't this book wouldn't have been delivered with the guts and determination that makes it great.
Elizabeth!! I need a part two!!
 a desperate housewife from long island.... June 21, 2008
a_poet_grows_in_brooklyn (Brooklyn, New York)
i most definately got into " i'm no saint " by elizabeth hayt, a memoir by a woman who thought she had it all, but still felt empty....i was impressed with her writing style. ms. hayt, an art critic, could just as easily be a novelist; she has a flair for writing, often dabbling in euphenisms, metaphors and colorful descriptions of her childhood on long island, then later as a college student in new york city. hayt drops names: she gets kissed by an up and coming musician named prince and spends time in keith richard's apartment, but makes it all seem as ordinary as a walk in the park. i felt for her when she explained while she was embracing her inner slut through many intimate encounters, she still wanted to be loved....
this woman is no prude; this book's sauciness will make the hair stand on the back of your neck. ms. hayt is equal parts porn star and intellectual; a combination that never fails to impress. like her mother, elizabeth gets an abortion, only to regret it later, longing to give her son, dash, a sibling.....i was hoping ms. hayt and charlie, her husband, would get back together, but real life is not a hollywood movie....but she comes out better from the experience. i will never look at jewish girls the same way again....clear a weekend on your calender and read this....
Okay, but a limited perspective January 10, 2007
hgrif (Kansas City, MO United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I enjoyed and related to some of the stories, having my own somewhat sordid past to own up to. I also thought the book was well-written. But the life the author lived is also full of things that only lots of money can buy... nannies, constant psychotherapy, lots of plastic surgery, among other things. Her story is hard at times for us middle class folk in "flyover country" to relate to.
A Cautionary Tale, and an Old Sad Story May 30, 2006
Secular Humanist Survivor
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
While the cast of characters in this story whirling around Ms. Hayt, the protagonist, are the overly educated, upwardly mobile denizens of New York City and its suburbs; with the fast-talking and the intellectualism and all eyes focused on seats of power; this memoir, in the final analysis, details a old sad story, and it's this:
That if you don't understand in your gut that lasting love and fulfillment in this life comes from the giving and not from the getting, you will wind up alone and feeling unlovable which will keep you alone.
Lasting love begins by selectively allowing other people all the way in to your very soul -- that means finding others who you believe may be worthy, evaluating whether they seem to have some real interest in knowing who you really are, and then gradually revealing your most private inner thoughts and dreams and cares and woes to those people, and then evaluating, by their words and actions, whether they really do care. If they do, you will feel cared about, and the feeling that you are cared about is so unbelievably wonderful that it will inspire you to allow those selected individuals in even further. This trust of allowing others in is the highest form of giving, which will engender trust from those people, and they will allow you in. And this is the way bonding happens, spirits intertwine, and love happens. And then you don't need lots of food, drugs, gambling, booze, etc., etc. to feel alive, because you'll have the real thing, which is true love, which really means feeling deeply cared about by another and knowing that the other person feels deeply cared about by you. Again, it doesn't come from running around trying to please others. Anyone can spread their legs. Anyone can learn to make gourmet dinners. There's no giving in that; there is no exposure of self in that; there's no trust in that. To get the fulfilling, lasting love, you must allow others all the way in and trust that the frightened, scarred, insecure, and highly imperfect soul inside you is wonderfully lovable as is. This is the old story that has always been true, and memoir will tell you what happens to people who don't understand this very fundamental emotional truth.
Honi soit qui mal y pense! May 25, 2006
Oswaldo S. Costa (New York, NY)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I greatly enjoyed this book, avidly turning the pages to see what would happen next as it hurtled towards its not-happy but smart and true-to-life ending. Although much of the author's behavior is not what genteel society would call, er, edifying, the self-awareness with which it is described (particularly from a psychoanalytical point of view, e.g., pleasing the father, narcissism, emotional insecurity, etc.) exposes human drives that many share but most bury under layers of good manners and that indefatigable will to please. Hayt is unsparing towards herself, almost self-destructive in her candor, and we are the beneficiaries. She also has a natural way with words, and linguistic gems lie everywhere, often adorning less than pretty entanglements. But even when things are their worst, her delicious sense of humor lightens her experiences, which are those of someone who has gone out on a limb, often and dangerously, while yearning for shelter. Yes, a tale of ambiguity, playing everywhere.
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