Trices Group Book Review Journal

Dying to Get Married

Harris, Ellen

by:

HarperCollins Publishers

Publisher:

Location:

1991

Cover:

Paperback

Type:

Lynard Barnes

reviewed by:

04/05/1995

Comment:

Good use of language, word play.

Republished from Crushies Book Reviews - Volume II Issue No. 4 - April 1995 - Copyright 1995:

Julia ("Julie") Miller was a thirty year old, successful, mid-level executive type from a relatively well to do family who wanted to get married. In 1985 she placed a singles advertisement in a local St. Louis newspaper that read in part:

Are you a "Really Nice Guy?" If yes, this "Nice Girl" wants you to read on. I'm single, white and female, 30 years, 5'2", 125 lbs, whose appearance is pleasing to the eyes. My 9-5 life is professional. Other time is combination creative and suburban homebody. I've realized life without a boyfriend isn't all that much fun….

Months later, in August 1985, Dennis Neal Bulloch answered her ad. He was "movie star" handsome, had a M. B. A. degree, worked in a major stock brokerage house, was a member of the Young Republicans and Friends of the Art Museum and the Zoo, belonged to the Classical Guitar Society and was getting a divorce from his current wife with whom he had not had children. Sounds like a match made in the heavens?
Brings to mind an old saw about being careful about what you want most in life--you may just get it.

There are a number of problems with Dying to Get Married, including a problem with what Harris dose not reveal about Julie Miller Bulloch. But the reader does get a sense or feel for this seeker of true romance. She is as her ad stated. What is not stated is the insecurity, the fear, the isolation. This side of Julie the author reveals in fits and starts. There are enough spruced-up bromides here to be of interest to any un-married person seeking to get married.

About a month after Julie marries her prince charming, she writes a friend, "What's in a name change? Sharing and trust…Am I too scared to trust? Yes--when I'm not accepted for what I am."

It is an insightful observation. But it is the type of observation one should make before getting married, not after. For Julie Miller, the insight came much too late in any event.

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Concerned that she had married for the wrong reasons, she attempted to distance herself from the looming disaster. It comes across in the diary excerpts that Harris provides as well as quotes from Julie's audiotapes. But why did Julie marry Dennis Bulloch in the first place?
Standing back and being "objective", we can see an intelligent young woman whose first twenty-five years of life seemed to have been spent attempting to please her parents, attempting to keep everything in its proper place, attempting to "go by the rules", attempting even to structure reality to her liking. Harris writes, "Julie was not looking for a soul mate. All she fantasized about was the All-American Dream as espoused by the girls' and women's magazines of the era: a nice husband, nice children, nice house, and, maybe, a nice job". After both parents die following long illnesses, Julie is left to pursue her fantasy.

It is obvious that Julie was starved for the simplest display of affection, not necessarily love. In the void, her fantasy took on a dynamism of its own. She dated. A friend of hers said she became fixated over anyone in a three-button suit, looked good on paper and earned a decent income. Having been left a sizable inheritance by her father and mother, she was not beyond using gifts and displays of wealth to gain attention from potential suitors. The author says that at times Julie's social life consisted of male colleagues with whom she worked and some of whom were married.

Dennis Bulloch was from a different mental world than the upper middle class world of Julie Miller. Despite his M.B.A., his job and associations, his frame of reference was not some idealized picture of life with wife and kids. Dennis Bulloch's world reference was himself--"fulfilling my potential" as Harris quotes him. He appears as one of those not so rare specie of human--male and female--so entranced with their own concerns that other people are but mere objects. And they treat others like objects.

Before even meeting him, Julie did a preliminary check. She checked his employment. She checked how he paid his phone bill. Enraptured by her fantasy, finally finding her corporate Prince Charming, her long sought after Mr. Right, Julie was blind to the creaky armor, the shallow smile and baleful lies. She did not check the estranged wife who worked at the same company Julie worked. Nor did Julie check the other women Dennis Bulloch was seeing at the time he started courting her. These women, including the ex-wife, would remain a part of Dennis's life throughout his ten month marriage to Julie.

I think Dying to Get Married is a book worth reading even for those not normally interested in the crime genre. It may be especially helpful for those among us who like happy endings. Dying to Get Married definitely does not have a happy ending and is an excellent primer on how not to have one. It is a slice of life--life lived as opposed to fantasized. The demarcation between life and fantasy is very well drawn here and unlike .

The barbs Harris hurls at our legal system is opinionated and to the point. She may not be the best writer this reviewer has read, but she certainly is one of the best at using the language.

Finally, my favorite line in this book is on page 118 where Harris discusses the population characteristics of St. Louis, Missouri ("the biggest small town in America") and Jefferson County.

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