Editorial Review:Product Description:In the first book on menage a trois ever written for a popular audience, Barbara and Michael Foster and Letha Hadady--themselves a partnership of 10 years' standing--reveal the truth about history's best-known trios and trace the menage's appearance in art, film, and fiction. 15 photos.
Amazon.com Review:If longevity is the proof and ménages à trois is the pudding, then
Three in Love is an appropriate recipe for this classically suspect concoction. Claiming that their own 16-year relationship is as valid an arrangement as marriage, the authors offer their defense with a mild dose of psychology amidst examples of famous threesomes--the more familiar (Lord Nelson and the Hamiltons, June & Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin) as well as some surprises.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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A pleasure
When a friend gave me Three in Love, I was very reluctant to read it. I am monogamous, of a conservative bent, and happy to be so. What a surprise! Three is a serious, yet enjoyable study of three way connections that people generally wink at without knowing anything about the dynamic which drives this sort of connection. Three examines the lives and creativity of the famous and not so who lived a trois and benefitted(sometimes not). The Fosters include diverse examples: Superman, the Beatles, Rousseau, the Bible and Picasso(etc.) in a tasty bouillabaisse spiced to perfection. I have ordered copies to give to friends for Christmas. Three is a read and a half- original and amusing ,not to mention a significant contribution to the literature on a subject that deserves further study from various perspectives.
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Three in Tragedy
Three In Love has been called a well researched history and that it seems to be. There was endless name dropping of who did who. Not being a historian, I had no idea who most of these people were and the authors neglected to tell me. That made the book very tedious. Moreover there was too much fact and not enough understanding. I found myself thirsting for insight. The few precious times the authors did discuss the emotional process involved it seemed rushed and brief.
This book is really miss-titled. It was only rarely about love. The menage a trois described were consistently tragic. They neatly fit the conventional view of a threesome as an immeshed, jealous, mess. Most often they were a maladjustment to one person's reckless promiscuity, or a someone's projection of their own obsessions, or at best, an adaptation to one partner's physical or emotional impotency. I was not left with a single story of enduring success. In short, I wouldn't want to be anyone in this book. It adds up to a real good argument to the point that a healthy menage a trois is impossible.
Ironically the best part of the book was the introduction, where the authors own family of three was described as warm and stable. We saw their yearning for recognition of this life choice. Those who live this lifestyle need a standard bearer. They need a book to leave conspicuously on the desk at work, or to give to others to say "This is what I'm about" Unfortunately this is not it. There are no good role models here.
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Lots of information and entertainment
I stumbled upon this book about historic threesomes by accident after looking at Letha Hadady's blog. She is one of the three authors who wrote Three in Love. I expected to find health tips, stale research, or dirty stories. Three in Love is none of these. It tells facinating stories of love and adventure about famous people throughout history - from the Bible to Superman. What entertainment! I am going out to look for my two right now.
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A life chaging book!
Three in Love is an excellent book. If you are looking for instructions on how to do a threesome forget it this is not the book. This book is a piece of research and will forcedly make go into a deep retrospection of all you life's ménages. For me and by accident was the answer for many questions that I had on a past relation that sadly went very sour but not enough to be a bloody triangle. Thanks to my maturity.
In the book you will discover the differences between a love triangle, a blood triangle and a ménage á trois. Also, you will discover the power of love in the service of mankind. Some of the stories went sour other went like a tale. In some of the ménages there was devastation because the members were insane, teaching us that a healthy relation is directly interconnected with the mental health of the persons inside it. Also the book teaches us a lot about the importance of the human qualities in a relation.
A ménage á trois is an exposé of the good and the bad of the relation. It is not a one sided book pro ménages without a very and extremely and deep perspective that shows all types of ménages (heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian and [..]). At the end of the book I discovered why mine did not work. People involved in a ménage á trois, quatre or even cinq have to have very special qualities of honesty, respect, admiration and love among many other qualities seldom encounter in one single individual. What about in three?
Three in love is the maximum expression of love. It is the alternative to a divorce and the destruction of the family. It is the alternative to safe and real sex for the sex starved marriage. It is the alternative to the financial destruction that a divorce causes an individual. It is a real act of love; it teaches you that you do not have to abandon your life long partner for you to be happy. It is an act of honesty and a reaffirmation of love and commitment of the individual.
After reading this book my respect about ménagers have increased because I see them as courageous people willing to live as they want and not conforming with the hypocrisy of societal mores.
This is simply a 100 star book on a subject that no one dares to touch!
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Hopeful but disappointed...
This book is only haphazardly a history of the ménage à trois and very rarely about three in love. Unfortunately, it isn't at all what the poorly understood realm of ménage sociology needs. At its best, "Three in Love" details a few threesomes--many of them notably centered on two men and a woman--who might have truly been threesomes but who nonetheless invariably seem to disintegrate in tragedy. At its worst, "Three in Love" gives us some of the bleakest examples of relationship behavior: fickleness, inconstancy, jealousy, betrayal, et cetera. Three in love should be just that: three in love (not three in manipulation, or three in betrayal, or three in scornfulness). Where are the examples of warm triads? Of real people trying to make it work, failing and succeeding in their own ways? Three can be such a beautiful number. There is a noteworthy minority of ménages out here in the world, and certainly the subject matter is difficult to place under scrutiny, but hasn't anyone with guts, integrity, consistency, and some scientific acumen shined any light on the potential beauty of the ménage? Such a work might be out there somewhere, but this one isn't it. If you read it, read it knowing that you'll be reading very little about love.
